


Crema

by twobirdsonesong



Series: Crema Verse [1]
Category: Glee
Genre: Alternate Canon, Crema verse, Fluff, Glee AU, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-11
Updated: 2012-12-11
Packaged: 2017-11-20 21:15:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 47,759
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/589703
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twobirdsonesong/pseuds/twobirdsonesong
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kurt’s just landed a job at Vogue as Carrie Bradshaw’s assistant. One of his tasks is to bring her coffee in the morning.  Enter Blaine, the barista.  This is the story of how they change each other’s lives.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Con Panna

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Español available: [Crema, Traducción al español](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2397860) by [Darren_Loveeer](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Darren_Loveeer/pseuds/Darren_Loveeer)



Blaine glances at the clock.

7:35am.

He’s got five more minutes before  _he_  comes in.  Blaine glances at the never-ending line of customers stretching down along the counter, past the pastry case and to the door.  If he starts making the coffee now, it’ll get cold before  _he_  can get it.  And there’s nothing Blaine wants to give him less than a lukewarm latte with a destroyed crema.

It’s been a week.  One week since the first time the tall, beautiful young man with smooth, pale skin and arresting eyes pushed his way into Blaine’s bustling Starbucks on a Monday morning, arms full of notebooks and too many bags secured over his broad shoulders.  His cheeks were flushed a pretty pink and he’d blinked anxiously at the line of customers in front of him, shifting impatiently from foot to foot as the line clearly moved too slowly for his liking.

Blaine had never seen him before.

He’d ordered a drink, reading the request off a slip of paper and had fumbled a little with a credit card to pay for it, struggling with his bags and notepads.  Blaine had been on bar that morning, as he almost always is, and had spilled at least two shots of espresso and burnt a pitcher of milk trying to sneak little glances at the man who was dressed far, far too well to be a tourist.

From what Blaine could see over the espresso machine, the man was wearing a dark coat, tailored to his slim figure, with a light blue scarf draped around his neck, even though it was September and still warm.  His hair was swept up and back, but still managed to look soft to the touch.  Not that Blaine wanted to touch his hair.  That would be weird, and inappropriate. 

It took a few minutes for Blaine to get to the man’s drink, but when he did, he slowed down from his usual frenetic pace, oddly eager to make this drink as best as he knew how – and if he were perfectly honest, he knew how to make a damn good cup of coffee.  He steamed the milk with care, annoyed, and not for the first time, with the automatic machines that took away the subtle skill necessary to create a really beautiful foam.  But he managed, and the dollop he scooped across the drop of the drink ( _light foam_ ), concealing the honey-golden crema, was silky smooth.  Perfect.

Blaine hadn’t bothered to read the name on the cup until he called the drink out:

“I have a venti, nonfat, light foam, two Splenda latte for Mrs. Bradshaw.”

Blaine blinked in surprise at the name.

“That’s for me, thank you.”  The young man with the perfect hair and beautiful clothes reached his hand out for the drink, but Blaine didn’t let go.  Their fingers almost brushed against the paper cup.

“Mrs. Bradshaw?” Blaine had asked, stupidly.

The man had flushed prettily and bit his lip. “It’s for my boss,” he’d admitted, and Blaine shivered at the sweet tone of his voice.  “It’s my first day.  I didn’t know I was supposed to bring her coffee.  No one told me.”

“Oh.  Here it is.”  Blaine finally let go at the drink and hoped his smile wasn’t as idiotic looking as it felt.  He didn’t even notice the dirty looks the other customers were shooting them both as the orders began to pile up on his bar.

“Thank you.  I hope it’s good,” the man nodded at the drink in his hand, and shrugged his bags back up his shoulder a bit.  “I’ll be fired if it’s not.”

Blaine had felt the color drain from his face and gaped at the man, who looked altogether too serious, despite the mischievous twinkle in his stunning eyes.  “What?”

The man grinned and rolled his eyes.  “I’m joking, I’m joking.  Your face was priceless though.”

Blaine had fumbled for something to say, something clever and witty and designed to make the other man laugh, but a cellphone had buzzed from somewhere in his coat and the man swore softly under his breath.

“Shit, shit,” he muttered.  “I’m going to be so late.  Thanks again.”  And then he was gone, shouldering the door open and disappearing into the bustle of Times Square.

Blaine had watched him go through the large window.  “I hope I don’t get you fired.”

The young man had come back the next morning, an hour earlier, and this time carrying nothing except a leather satchel.  He’d look calmer, less anxious, and he stood still and impeccably dressed in the line until he’d reached the register and ordered the same drink as the day before.

“I see I didn’t get you fired,” Blaine said, when the man had reached the bar and his perfectly made drink was ready for him. 

“And I thank you for that,” he’d replied, and his eyes were a slightly different shade of blue than they’d been the morning before.  “I rather like this job, or at least I think I do.  It’s only my second day.  We’ll see if I can’t screw anything up in the next nine hours.”

“Well here’s hoping for a third.”  Blaine was relieved he’d somehow managed to say something mildly not-dumb.  His tongue, already not the quickest, felt heavy and slow in his mouth around this gorgeous, intriguing stranger.

The man had tipped his cup at Blaine and left with another smile.

He’d come back every morning that week, at the exact same time, and ordered the exact same drink.  And Blaine still didn’t know his name.

***

Another Monday morning and Blaine is ready for him.  He’s got a fresh milk pitcher waiting and clean shot glasses, just for the man’s drink.  He’d made sure to keep his deployment on bar; it wasn’t difficult – everyone knows he made the best drinks in the store.

The clock ticks another minute and Blaine looks up just as the door pushes open and  _he_  sweeps in, tall and regal in his long coat and high boots.

The man’s eyes immediately find his through the crowd of customers and Blaine sketches a wave at him, thrilling down to his toes when the stranger smiles and wiggles his fingers (long, strong fingers) back at him.

Blaine ignores all of his Starbucks training and starts making the man’s drink, ahead of the other cups in line.  He hears another drink get called out and sees a marked cup get set down next to him.  He glances at it: grande nonfat, no whip mocha.  The name scrawled at the top of the cup is “Kurt.”  Blaine gets another pitcher of nonfat milk steaming and finishes off the venti latte with a clever little bit of foam art that Mrs. Bradshaw will never even notice, but it pleases Blaine to do anyway.

“Here’s your drink, Mrs. Bradshaw’s assistant,” he says, letting a bit of coyness slip into his voice.  He had lovely couple of days off over the weekend, gotten all of his homework completed, it’s a beautiful Monday morning, and he’s feeling brave.

The man rolls his eyes at Blaine, but takes the cup.  “You’re too good to me. I saw you start my drink before those other people.  I can only imagine the rioting if they found out.”

“I have no idea what you mean.”  Blaine is unduly impressed with himself that he’s managing to flirt, just a little, while making a mocha.

“Oh, of course not.  My mistake.”  The man bites at his bottom lip, and Blaine wants to know that feels like.  He focuses on the drink in front of him, and not the breadth of the stranger’s shoulders, or the pale length of his neck, exposed by the low draping of his scarf.

“May I have a tray?” The man asks, tipping his head towards the stack of cardboard trays on the counter.

“For one drink?”  Blaine asks, confused.  It’s not the first time someone has asked for a tray for one little drink, but it’s the first time the stranger has asked for anything at all.

“Oh, that one’s mine too.  I finally got something for myself.  My boss yelled at me for neglecting a caffeine habit.”  The man shrugs a little, clearly a little embarrassed, and yet pleased at the allowance of his boss.  It must be his first real job, and he’s lucky his employer doesn’t seem like a jackass.

Blaine looks down at the drink he’s just putting a lid on.

 _Kurt_.

The young man’s name is Kurt.  He is no longer Mrs. Bradshaw’s assistant, he is  _Kurt._

“Kurt,” Blaine says, and flushes at his returning idiocy.

“That’s me.”

“Grande nonfat, no whip mocha.”

“Yep, that’s also me.”

Blaine hesitates to hand the man,  _Kurt_ , the drink.  He’d made it by rote memory, no attention to detail, no finesse, - just practiced repetition. Not like the latte, which, even though he’d known it wasn’t for Kurt specifically, he’d still spent extra time crafting it.

“Let me remake this for you” he says, already halfway to dumping it out.  The chocolate sauce probably isn’t well-incorporated into the milk and it’s probably clumped at the bottom of the cup.  He can’t serve that to Kurt.

“What? No.  I’m sure it’s fine.”  Kurt reaches out and takes the cup from Blaine’s hand, and this time their fingers do brush.  Blaine shivers, even though it’s always so warm behind the bar, with the espresso machines in front of him and the oven at his back.  He hopes his cheeks aren’t as flushed as they feel.

“But,”

“Nope.”  Kurt jams the second drink into the carrier and picks it up.  “If it’s no good I’ll just come back and have  _you_  fired.”  He winks at Blaine, he fucking  _winks_ , and Blaine knows his face is red and his jaw is dropped.

“See you tomorrow, barista.” And then Kurt is gone; back out into the endless motion that is Times Square.  Blaine tries to catch sight of him, tall in the crowd, to see where he goes after he leaves every morning, but Kurt turns the corner onto Broadway and is gone from sight.

Blaine knows Kurt will be back tomorrow morning, and he’s going to have the best goddamn nonfat mocha waiting for him.


	2. Doppio

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kurt’s just landed a job at Vogue as Carrie Bradshaw’s assistant. One of his tasks is to bring her coffee in the morning. Enter Blaine, the barista. This is the story of how they change each other's lives.

Blaine doesn’t know why he does it (he does know why, he just doesn’t want to think about it), but the next morning he gets up an extra fifteen minutes early, which means it’s 4:30am and he’s sure the neighbors just love the sound of his pipes creaking as he showers that much earlier.  He remembers last week, when the unruly little boy down the hall kicked his door at 9pm, waking him from a restless sleep on the couch, and calls it even.  
  
He stares into his closet, at the collection of black polos that are crammed into the far left, as far away from the rest of his clothing as possible.  It doesn’t matter; everything he owns smells of coffee.  His clothes.  His books.  His goddamn bed.   _He_  smells of coffee.  Showers and cologne do nothing to mask the scent of roasted beans and brewed coffee that lingers on his skin, seeps into his pores, twists through his hair.  At first he hated it, but that was years ago.  Now it just is.  
  
Blaine grabs the newest of his standard issue polos and pulls it on.  This one hasn’t been washed a million times and is still a fresh, dark black, free of Spirit spots and whipped cream stains that just won’t quite come out.  He hasn’t ironed his slacks, because his iron broke two months ago and he doesn’t want to waste the cash on a new one, not with school starting up again and his hours about to drop drastically (not to mention his tips).  But he’s careful to hang his pants up at night, and the ones he picks for the day, black and tailored to show just a bit of ankle (because nothing in the dress code says he  _can’t_ ), are free of wrinkles.  That morning, it’s very important to him to be as neat and wrinkle-free as possible.  
  
He spends more time than usual looking in the mirror that morning, fingering a bit of product into his curls, taking care to style them just so.  Long gone are the days when he’d comb his hair flat to his head.  New York has provided for him a number of things, the least of which is the courage to wear his hair au natural.  But that morning, he wants it to look just a little bit nicer, a little less out of control.  
  
Blaine catches his own wide eyes in the mirror and he flushes.  There’s an obvious reason why he gives a shit about his appearance that dark, early morning.  
  
The Week of Kurt, as he thinks of it (and damn there’s the flutter of his pulse whenever he thinks of the tall, extraordinarily well-put-together young man), was a happy fluke.  He doesn’t usually work that often, or so consistently in the mornings. His graduate program at Tisch is going to be intense, exhaustingly so much of the time, and he only sticks to twenty hours a week, and not fewer, to qualify for medical insurance.  
  
Soon enough though, the twenty hours is going to feel like too much.  He knows.  He remembers.  He worked at Starbucks all through his undergrad studies at NYU, and he remembers the long, aching days when he thought he’d never make it another step, another note.  But he put one foot in front of the other, and kept on.  
  
It’s only the second week of classes though, and the workload is still light enough that Blaine picks up the extra shifts for his desperate coworker without worrying too much about it.  He won’t be able to soon enough, or so everyone who’s already gone through the first year of the program has warned him.  A few extra bucks in tips doesn’t hurt either.  
  
But now, now he’s thankful that he did, because if he hadn’t, if he refused the extra hours, he would never had seen Kurt.  Kurt with his unfathomable eyes and perfect skin.  Kurt with his expensive clothing and exquisite hair.  His broad shoulders and trim waist.  The way his hands wrapped around the coffee cup.  
  
Blaine realizes he’s been standing in his cramped bathroom for too long, staring vacantly into the mirror and he shakes his head.  He’s being an idiot.  Kurt is clearly out his league.  He’s an assistant to someone important enough to need an assistant, and one who buys her assistant coffee every morning on the company card.  Blaine is just a struggling grad student who can’t buy a new iron and is already worried more about his upcoming school work than having an actual social life.  
  
Blaine grabs the apron (a black  _Coffee Master_  one you can’t earn any more) that perpetually hangs from the bathroom door and rushes out of his apartment.  
  
***

A lot of partners don’t care for them, but Blaine rather likes the opening shift.  There’s a rhythm to it - getting the coffee and iced tea brewed, the pastry case stocked, the oven warmed.  If the closing shift’s done their job right, the dishes are clean, the cups are stocked, and the mocha powder is waiting on the counter to be mixed.  They don’t have a lot of time between clocking in and the doors opening, but when done properly, with the right crew, it all flows together wonderfully and they’ve got everything ready by the time the first impatient businessman or sleepy-eyed tourist comes knocking at their door.  
  
That’s not to say Blaine wants to open every time he works - he’d rather turn off his alarm off and sleep in like most everyone else, but the beauty of opening is you get half an hour without customers, and oftentimes he’s so sleepy that the time flies to his first 10 minute break in a haze of practiced repetition, fake smiles, and endless pulls of espresso.  
  
Opening also means that he’s there, in his usual spot behind the bar, when Kurt walks in.  
  
It’s a bright, warm autumn morning in New York and Kurt’s wearing pair of sunglasses that hide his eyes.  His outfit is lighter than the week before, when there’d been a slight chill in the air, but it’s no less stunning.  Blaine doesn’t know much, or anything, about designers, but the white jacket Kurt has on, zipped up over a dark grey V-neck shirt, looks like it costs at least a month of Blaine’s pay.  He doesn’t even want to think about the value of the ankle boots Kurt’s wearing. He also tries not to think about the lean length of Kurt’s legs in his dark, fitted jeans.  
  
Blaine swallows when Kurt takes his sunglasses off, tucking them into the neck of his shirt (Blaine’s sure Kurt doesn’t want to mess up the careful sweep of his hair by pushing his glasses up on top of his head) and scans the store.  His face opens and brightens when he spots Blaine, and Blaine hopes, stupidly, foolishly, that Kurt notices his hair.  He remembers too late that Kurt will never see his pants because he’s behind the bar, most of his body hidden from view.  He’s thankful, however, that his shoes are concealed - ragged old all-black Chucks that bear the scars and stains of spilled milk and dropped Frappuccino.  
  
Blaine ignores the fact that he doesn’t know if Kurt’s even interested in men.  
  
Blaine holds up two empty cups - one venti and one grande - and lifts an eyebrow inquiringly.  From the back of the uncommonly short line, Kurt laughs and nods at him.  If Blaine does nothing else of worth today, at least he’s made Kurt laugh.  
  
Kurt leans a hip against the bar counter when he’s made it through the line and past the register.  There are generally two types of Starbucks customers at Blaine’s store - those who crowd impatiently around the end of the bar, ready to snatch their drink from the barista’s hand (or someone else’s drink if they’re really not paying attention), and those who stand too far away, chattering on their cellphones and never hearing their drink get called out.  
  
Kurt seems to be neither one; he’s standing close, but his body language is languid and casual, his torso a smooth line up from the curve of the hip he’s leaning against the counter.  
  
This close, his chestnut hair has blonde highlights and his eyes are sea-blue, sparkling in the morning sunlight filtering through the windows.  Blaine tries, and fails, not to feel self-conscious about his own boring, dark hair (hair that he spent that little extra time on that morning) and uninteresting eyes.  He can’t imagine someone like Kurt could possibly be interested in someone like him, but he’d still like his effort to be appreciated.  
  
“Your hair looks nice this morning,” Kurt says, and Blaine fumbles with the Splenda he’d been ripping open.  The sweetener flies everywhere and Blaine drops the packets into the cup.  He flushes a deep, shamed red, and reaches for a new one, avoiding what must certainly be a pitying look from Kurt.  
  
“I, thanks.”  Blaine finally glances over, and Kurt’s looking right at him, biting his lower lip a little, cheeks stained a pretty pink.  “I like your jacket.”  
  
Kurt runs a hand over the sleeve of the coat in question, preening, just a little.  “Amazing isn’t it?  I can’t believe they’re letting me wear it.  Out in the real world where any number of things could happen to it.”  
  
Blaine wants to ask what he means, but the milk is done steaming and the shots are ready.  The drink is for Kurt’s boss, and there’s no way Blaine’s screwing it up because he can’t drag his eyes away from the thin skin at the base of Kurt’s throat.  
  
“Why don’t you wear a nametag?”  Kurt asks suddenly.  
  
Blaine looks down at his chest, where his apron is devoid of a nametag, or any flare at all. “I lost it, a while ago.  And never got a replacement.  No one’s said anything about it yet.”  
  
“I bet it helps keep all the lecherous customers off your case too, huh?”  
  
Blaine doesn’t understand the comment; people don’t look at the short barista with the crazy hair and propensity for ankle-baring pants.  Blaine covers his awkwardness by starting Kurt’s drink.  He doesn’t see the way Kurt’s cheeks darken with his own embarrassment.  
  
He steams the milk differently than he would for a latte, letting the steam wand drop to the bottom of the pitcher.  He doesn’t want any foam to form, not for this.  Maybe another morning he’ll make Kurt a cappuccino, aerating the milk to light, silky perfection.  He wishes he had better ingredients than the powdered mocha mix for Kurt, wishes he had fine chocolate and orange rinds that he could craft into a truly wonderful taste experience for Kurt.  
  
Blaine settles for adjusting the amount of mocha used, one less pump than standard, and adding a pump of vanilla (sugar-free, because Kurt ordered nonfat, no whip) as if he were making a hot chocolate.  He pulls the espresso shots just long of ristretto, keeping them just a little bit sweeter.  He knows he’s taking all sorts of liberties with Kurt’s drink, but he doesn’t care.  He promised Kurt the best goddamn mocha he could make and that’s what he’s doing.  He stirs as he free-pours the milk, making sure that this time there’s no chance the chocolate won’t get fully incorporated.  He’s still annoyed that he gave Kurt that drink yesterday and wants to erase the taste of it from Kurt’s memory.  
  
Blaine slips a lid on the cup.  He would have made a pretty little design on the top - maybe a leaf for the upcoming season - but Kurt’s watching him with those bright, beautiful eyes, and his hands feel too unsteady.  
  
He slides the drink towards Kurt, who takes it, but doesn’t stuff it into the tray with his boss’ latte.  
  
“So,” Kurt begins, long fingers playing with the lip of the lid.  “That comment about your nametag was kind of my way of asking for your name.  I guess it didn’t go over quite as smoothly as I thought it would.”  
  
“Oh!”  _Idiot idiot idiot_.  He twists the sanitizing rag he’d been cleaning the steam wand with.  “It’s Blaine.  I’m Blaine.  My name’s Blaine.”  
  
 _Say it one more time you moron._  
  
“Well, Blaine, it’s a pleasure to meet you.  I should go before the rest of your customers start throwing sugar packets at me.”  
  
Blaine hadn’t noticed the backlog of drink orders until just then.  He can’t quite bring himself to care.  Kurt asked for his name.  
  
“Wait!” Blaine calls out as Kurt turns to leave.  “Will you...will you taste it before you go?  Tell me what you think?  It’s not exactly standard recipe.”  
  
Kurt lifts an eyebrow at him, clearly intrigued, but brings the drink to his lips.  His eyes are locked with Blaine’s, and Blaine can feel his heart pounding in his throat.  Somewhere in the background a coffee timer is beeping incessantly.  
  
Kurt’s eyes flutter closed briefly as he swallows, and Blaine can tell, he just knows by the shifting of Kurt’s expression, the subtle smile, the working of his throat, that the drink is delicious.  Of course it is, but it means something that Kurt thinks so too.  
  
“It’s perfect,” Kurt says, and his tongue darts out to catch a drop off his bottom lip.  The warming oven could catch on fire and Blaine wouldn’t notice.  “Thank you.”  
  
“Anytime.”  And Blaine means it.  
  
As Kurt slips out of the store and onto the crowded sidewalk, Blaine’s mind is abuzz with all sorts of unique and wonderful things he could create for Kurt.


	3. Americano

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kurt’s just landed a job at Vogue as Carrie Bradshaw’s assistant. One of his tasks is to bring her coffee in the morning. Enter Blaine, the barista.

Kurt Hummel loves his job, he really, really does.  Blood, sweat, and tears (all three literal and figurative), and a tremendous amount of luck, had brought him to it.  He’s going to do absolutely everything in his power, and his talent, to keep it.  
  
He’d worked his ass (pert and toned thank you very much) getting his BFA in Fashion Design at Parsons, and had planned on moving right on to the new MA program in Fashion Studies. The faculty had loved him, his professors had nurtured his growth, had pulled things from deep inside of him that he hadn’t known were there, and they were eager to keep him at their school; loathe to lose him to the Pratt Institute or god forbid the West Coast.  But instead, by chance, happenstance, serendipity,  _whatever_  - the world opened up for him in a way he’d never imagined, never even dreamed it could.  At least not as his young age.  
  
Kurt is nothing if not determinedly optimistic about where his life is going, and so far, it’s going pretty well.  
  
And now he wants it all.  Wants to design his own line, wants sew every piece himself.  He wants to travel to Milan or Paris for a few years, intern there, scratch out a living by the length of his tape measure and the sharp edge of his scissors.  Kurt wants to experience the world, get a taste of life and love and art and culture, get as far from small-town USA as he can.  And fuck it all if it’s not his deepest ambition to somehow, someday take over Anna Wintour’s position as editor-in-chief at Vogue.  He’s got a foot, well maybe a toe, in the door for the latter at least - he works at Vogue now.  
  
A delicious shiver works its way up his spine and raises the hair on the back of his neck, the same way it does every time he remembers it.  He works at Vogue.   _Vogue_.  And he doesn’t just work there; he doesn’t just fetch coffee and deliver mail as a harried, overworked and underpaid gopher-intern (although he does the former and is fucking glad to do so).  
  
No.  He is the assistant to Mrs. Bradshaw ( _Carrie, goddamn it Kurt call me Carrie before I fire you, you’re making me feel even older than I already do_ ), current fashion editor at Vogue, contributing columnist to the New York Star, and author of four, soon-to-be five bestselling books.  Nevermind the whole fashion icon aspect.  It’s almost too much.  
  
Kurt Hummel gets to walk through the front doors of Condé Nast in Times Square every morning (six mornings and counting) with his chin raised.  It doesn’t matter that he’s carrying two cups of coffee and only one of them is for him.  So what if his heart still beats so hard, so fast he’s sure the security guard who checks his ID badge can see it fluttering in his throat, can see the rattling of his ribs through his clothes.  
  
But he is twenty-two fucking years old and he is the Assistant to the Fashion Editor of Vogue.  
  
How is this his life?  
  
Kurt knows there is a host of people working for the magazine who already don’t like him.  Who’s this kid? They whisper when he walks through the halls carrying proofs and drafts and whatever else Carrie needs or wants.  He didn’t pay his dues, they accuse when he gets to sit in on his first editorial meeting that first Friday morning.  
  
He doesn’t have a spot around the huge table with the heads of the departments, but he sits off to the side, with his laptop open and typing away every note, every detail of the meeting, desperately trying to focus while Anna Wintour sits just feet away from him.  She’s not often at those meetings, but she was at that one, and Kurt was dumbstruck, star struck.  
  
Kurt wants to absorb absolutely everything he can, to learn and grow from the best of the best.  He knows he’s got a natural talent, but with the proper guidance he can, and will, get better.  And there he was in a room with some of the most talented, powerful, influential people in the business,  _his_  business, and they were sitting around discussing the future of fashion.  In front of him.  It felt a little like a dream, that meeting, until Carrie leaned back in her chair a bit, caught his eye, and winked at him.  
  
He almost can’t blame them, his coworkers who don’t like him.  This job had come to him, almost too easily if he’s perfectly honest with himself; he hadn’t sought it out.   But he’d worked so hard for so little for so long; why shouldn’t something come to him easy, sweet and smooth, for once?  And why shouldn’t that thing be something as incredible, as life-altering as this?  There are men and women out there who’d kill to be in his position.  There are employees at Vogue who’ve been striving for his job since they started.  And he was plucked out of thin air, off the Brooklyn Bridge, by Carrie Bradshaw herself.  
  
He knows he’s lucky, but he also knows he deserves it.  He works hard and he’s talented - he’s not going to apologize to anyone for either of those things.  But he’s also not going to rub it in their faces.  He’s going to prove it to them that he deserves to be there.  
  
Kurt Hummel is going to be damn good at his job.  
  
***  
  
Kurt checks himself out in the mirror, preening just a little, as he gets dressed that Tuesday morning.  He’s wearing the white Ralph Lauren jacket again and he doesn’t care that it’s two days in a row.  It’s a beautiful piece and he’s going to flaunt it while he can.  He has to return it to its rightful owners today, so he’s wearing it every moment he can until they pry it off his back.  It looks amazing on him though - showing off the breadth of his shoulders and the long curve of his back.  It’s a sample piece - literally off the rack - and somehow it fits him perfectly, down to the length of the arm and the nip in the waist.  
  
He’s sad to see it go, but if this is any indication of the perks of his new job, then good things, gorgeous things, are in his future.  
  
And besides, Blaine had commented on it.  That’s reason enough to wear it again.  
  
Kurt’s pulse flutters a little at the thought of the adorable, endearingly shy barista and he catches himself grinning stupidly into the mirror. It feels like it’s been forever since he cared enough to dress for someone other than himself, and the anticipation of Blaine’s appreciative gaze bubbles, happy and hopeful, through his veins.  He doesn’t know much, or anything at all about Blaine, but he knows when someone is interested in him, and Blaine is.  Even if he’s trying, for some reason, to hide it.  
  
He throws a scarf of his own design around his neck, loose and light and baring his throat because he’d noticed Blaine staring the other morning, and checks one last time that he hasn’t somehow gotten any New York City grime on the borrowed coat.  It’s one thing to get his own clothes dirty - he can always wash them - but this is  _designer_  and one smudge, one tear has the potential to cost him his job, everything.  But the jacket is perfect, pristine, and Kurt heads out into the early, filtered morning light of the East Village.  
  
There’s someone else back behind the bar when Kurt walks into the ever-bustling Starbucks.  He’s a tall, slim boy with a shock of blonde hair almost falling into his face.  It throws Kurt off.  He’d expected to see Blaine there.  Blaine with his whiskey-gold eyes and expressive mouth.  His narrow waist, somehow accentuated by the unflattering apron he wore, and the strain of his biceps against the sleeves of his black polo shirt as he steams milk and reaches for cups.  Blaine who blushes so prettily whenever Kurt tries to flirt with him a little.  
  
Kurt orders his usual drinks from the tiny, dark-haired girl who’s almost always on register and glances around for Blaine, wondering if this is his day off or something.  It’s strange, how suddenly the thought of the mocha isn’t as appetizing as it was a minute ago.  
  
But as Kurt moves down to the counter to wait for his drinks, he finds Blaine with his back to him on the other side of the bar, mop in his strong hands and a bright yellow bucket next to him.  The remnants of some drink is puddled at his feet.  
  
Now that he’s not hidden behind the bar and the giant espresso machines, Kurt takes a moment to, well, to check Blaine out.  He’s shorter than Kurt, with curly hair that looks soft to the touch and broad shoulders that taper down to an absurdly narrow waist.  Kurt thinks his hands would fit just perfectly in the notches above Blaine’s hips.  His black pants skim close to his strong thighs and Kurt can see the flex of his muscles against the fabric.  Kurt blinks a little when he notices that Blaine’s hems end a good inch and a half above his shoes, exposing a stretch of smooth, tanned ankle.  It’s not that the pants don’t fit and are too short for him; they’re designed that way.  Kurt can’t help the little thrill that rushes through him with the realization that Blaine manages to instill a bit of thought, a bit of fashion into his basic, boring dress code.  
  
And when he bends over to squeeze the excess water from the mop, Kurt appreciates the truly magnificent ass in those fitted pants.  
  
Kurt startles when his name is suddenly called out by the barista and he smiles when Blaine straightens up and turns around.  His eyes, a wonderful kind of golden in the light of the cafe, are wide, almost panicked, and when he spots Kurt, still staring at him, color rises fast to his cheeks.  
  
“Kurt, hi, good morning,” Blaine says.  
  
“You’re out from behind your usual prison.”  Kurt tips his head towards the bar, where the younger blonde barista is watching them with dancing eyes.  He looks pleased by their exchange, and Kurt hopes it’s a sign that Blaine’s been talking about him to his coworkers.  He’s certainly been gushing to Carrie about Blaine.  
  
“I,” Blaine glances at the mop in his hand.  He looks almost embarrassed to be caught with it.  “There was a tragic latte suicide.”  
  
“What a loss.”  
  
“It really was.  It was a good drink - it will be mourned.” Blaine’s lips twist wryly and he blinks slowly.  
  
 _This is good,_  Kurt thinks.  _I’ve got him joking with me.  And he’s definitely looking me over._  
  
Kurt can see the way Blaine’s eyes rake over him, from top to bottom, and is inordinately pleased by the blush that continues to darken his cheeks.  Whatever else Blaine is (and Kurt’s just aching to find out), he’s definitely shy.  Kurt wonders why Blaine always seems so surprised that he’s showing interest in him.  
  
“You’re wearing the jacket again,” Blaine says, and his voice is low and soothing over the shrill steaming of milk, the chatter of the other customers, the beeping of the timers.  Kurt’s heart thuds against his ribcage, beating a victory.  
  
“Carrie saw me drooling over it and let me borrow it.  I’m surprised I’m not under armed guard.”  He fingers the cuff of the sleeve, tugging where it sits perfectly.  He hopes Blaine likes his scarf just as much as he seems to like the jacket.  
  
“Carrie?” Blaine asks, tilting his head, the name unfamiliar.  
  
“Carrie’s my boss.  She’s altogether too generous, but I think she kind of likes me.”  
  
“Your boss,” Blaine pauses. “The latte.  Mrs. Bradshaw.”  The pieces fall into place, and the locking together of them chimes a terrible toll in Blaine’s head.  “Carrie Bradshaw is your boss?”  
  
Kurt puffs up with pride a little; he can’t help it.  “Yep.”  
  
“Carrie Bradshaw.   _Sex and the City_  columnist.  Best-selling author.  Fashion Editor at Vogue.” Blaine’s voice rises with each descriptive.  “She’s your boss?”  
  
“That she is.”  
  
“You work at Vogue.”  Blaine feels the hope and quiet, desperate longing that had slowly been building in his chest over the last week (soft and sweet like the first sip of espresso) leave him, draining out through the soles of his ragged shoes, taking the color in his face with them.  
  
Kurt is so incredibly out of his league it hurts.  There are a quarter of a million LGBTQ* people in New York City, and even if only half of them are people Kurt might be even remotely interested in, that’s still more than 100,000 people Blaine has to compete with for his bright-eyed attention.  He’s lived in the city for going on five years - he knows exactly how many tall, gorgeous,  _wealthy_ , well-dressed gay men there are on the cramped island of Manhattan.  Or maybe Kurt already has someone waiting at their undoubtedly perfectly-appointed apartment for him.  
  
Blaine is just a guy, just a silly boy with scuffed shoes and a cramped apartment with creaky pipes on the outskirts of the East Village.  
  
He doesn’t know how long Kurt’s been in New York, but soon enough someone ( _better than you_ ) will catch his eye - a stockbroker with a stuffed wallet, a model with a bulging ego to match his abs, a quirky art student to be his muse - and he’ll forget all about the barista who once made him the best mocha of his life.  
  
Kurt watches Blaine’s face fall and wonders what just went wrong, and how he can fix it fast.  
  
Blaine looks over at the bar, where Kurt’s two drinks are sitting, waiting, and he worries his bottom lip between his teeth.  “Your coffee is going to get cold.”  
  
 _I don’t want it_ , Kurt thinks.  _You didn’t make it._  
  
“I’m sure it’ll be fine,” he says.  
  
“Jeff’s good.  He makes a good cup of coffee.  I mean, your mocha will just be to standard, it won’t be like yesterday.”  Kurt sees how Blaine’s hands tighten around the mop, knuckles going white.  
  
“I could come back?” Kurt asks hopefully.  He gets an hour for lunch and his office is just around the corner.  He could spend the whole time sitting in the cafe watching Blaine, watching his capable hands craft drink after drink, never faltering.  “Get my proper drink from the master.”  
  
“I’m off in a few hours.”  Blaine’s voice is full of regret.  
  
“Tomorrow?”  
  
“Off.  I have class, I don’t usually work this often.”  
  
Kurt deflates a little, but not much, because Blaine looks honestly crestfallen at his own schedule.  
  
“But, uhm, Friday?”  Blaine finally locks eyes with his, wide and cautiously hopeful, and Kurt’s breath catches in his throat.  “I’ll be here Friday.”  
  
“Then so will I,” Kurt breathes out.  The bubbles from that morning are back, making his fingers tingle.  A mocha a day is going to do terrible things to his waistline if he isn’t careful, but in that moment he doesn’t fucking care.  He’ll take a hundred merely standard drinks if it means getting just one more carefully crafted specialty of Blaine’s.  
  
If it means seeing Blaine again before the weekend.  
  
“So Friday,” Blaine says, after Kurt’s gathered up his drinks.  
  
“Bright and early.”

“I’m,” Blaine bites his lip again, but a smile peaks through, soft and delicate like the foam he takes such care to make.  “I’m looking forward to it.”

The grin that breaks out across Kurt’s face is probably visible from Carrie’s office, all teeth and fluttering hope.  “Me too.”  
  
As Kurt finally leaves, close to becoming late for work, he’s already running through his favorite pieces in his own closet, trying to imagine an outfit that might put that same sweetly stunned look in Blaine’s eyes that had been there the first time he’d walked into that Starbucks.


	4. Shot in the Dark

Friday comes altogether too fast and too slow for Blaine, the way things you’re anticipating always seem to do.  Time stretching and contracting, throwing him off, making him stumble, making him fear and ache for Friday morning until the tangled, conflicting emotions threaten to burst from his fingertips and rain down onto blank sheet music.  It only takes until Wednesday afternoon, sitting in one of his labs, when he hasn’t seen Kurt for a full day, for Blaine to realize, with a low throb in his belly, that he misses him.  Misses the smooth line of his jaw, the careful sweep of his hair.  The ways his eyes subtly change color with the light and his clothes, but always find his the moment he walks through the door in the morning.  
  
School is picking up and his first real assignment is coming due.  It makes the days so short - his classes seem to fly by in a whirl of monologues and dialogues, compositions and writing exercises.  He loves it though.  It’s only been a few weeks but the program fits, sits easy and comfortable on his shoulders.  He feels his own personal voice, as a writer and composer, already growing, building upon his previous training.  But it makes the nights too-long, when he’s camped out on the couch with his notes and books spread out in organized disarray on the coffee table in front of him.  Sometimes his dinner goes cold, lost underneath his pages and pens.  He’s always been a good student, bright and eager to learn, willing to go every extra mile laid out in front of him, but musical theatre is his passion.  It’s his life, his breath, his  _voice_.    
  
He’s not sure if he’ll ever write or compose anything of worth, anything to be remembered by, but he’s going to strive for just that every day.  This is who he is.  
  
But Friday morning, musical theatre is the last thing on his mind.  Blaine shaves with extra care, lathering up in the sink so he can look in the mirror instead of doing it in the shower by touch and muscle-memory alone.  Even though the straight razor sits comfortable and easy in his practiced hand, it will not do to show up with nicks, not that morning.  Nevermind that it’s been years since his hand has slipped and brought blood to the surface.  He’s not taking any damn chances.  
  
He picks a white polo from his closet that morning, because Kurt has only ever seen him in all-black, and even Blaine, who thinks little of his appearance on the best of days, will admit that his skin, more honey-browned than usual by the long summer, looks good against the stark white.  
  
The early morning news, which he keeps at a barely-discernible volume so as not to disturb his neighbors so early, tells him that the day is going to be warm, almost hot.  And even though the store is air-conditioned, with the espresso machines in front of him and the warming oven blazing at his back, he’s going to get warm.  Too warm.  He picks a pair of khaki-colored pants.  The fabric is lighter in weight and the legs are even shorter than his favorite ankle-baring ones.  They’re not quite capris, but they’re pushing it.  They’ll help keep him cool though.  He doesn’t want Kurt to see him shining with sweat before 8 o’clock in the morning.  
  
Blaine shivers a little in his already stuffy apartment when he thinks that maybe he could stand for Kurt to see him shining with sweat for a completely different reason.  
  
<i>It’s not a date</i>, he tells himself, shaking his head and sliding his feet into his shoes, it’s just his job.  The man who works for Carrie fucking Bradshaw isn’t going to date a lowly barista cum grad student.  
  
He’s almost out of the door, metro card tucked in his back pocket, before he realizes that he’s forgotten to do anything to his hair.  He rushes back to his bathroom and fingers some product through his curls, getting them off his forehead and out of his eyes as best he can.  He grins ruefully at the flush that never seems to leave his cheeks anymore.  
  
***  
  
He’s not supposed to anymore, due to changing company policy, but Blaine still makes several drinks at a time - steaming enough 2% milk for the two tall lattes down the line, pulling enough shots for both the grande americano and the short cappuccino that come next.  It keeps the line moving at the pace the store, and the customers, expect.  The quality of his drinks never falters, and his shift supervisor and manager never say anything.  In fact, they encourage him with their winking silence on the matter.  
  
He’s been studiously ignoring the clock all morning, and by 7:00am he’s so deep into the rhythm of the bar that the opening of the front door no longer pulls his attention away from his line of drinks.  
  
But when Blaine’s hears a  _grande nonfat no whip mocha_  get called out from Sugar, who’s on register, to the floater who’s marking cups, his head snaps up and he finds Kurt standing there, smiling at him.  Blaine almost burns his fingers on the steam wand when his hand slips.  
  
“Morning,” Kurt mouths at him, waving a little, and Blaine tucks the look in Kurt’s eyes, happy and sweet, deep into his memory, kept secret and safe in case he never sees it again.  
  
Blaine smiles back at him, he can’t help it, and gets a fresh pitcher of cold nonfat milk and clean shot glasses ready, waiting for Kurt’s drink until Kurt has moved past the register and down to Blaine’s end of the bar.  
  
“So, if someone were to make you a drink, what would it be?”  Kurt is leaning against the bar again, hip propped against the counter with such casual elegance that it brings a lump to Blaine’s throat.  The scarf draped with such practiced artfulness around his neck is steel grey and diaphanous, and it brings out flecks of deeper color in Kurt’s eyes.  
  
“What?” Blaine asks, stupidly, at the unexpected question.  
  
Blaine doesn’t let anyone use his personal espresso machine, a beautiful, Italian-made work of craftsmanship that he only has because his brother bought it for him and refused to take back when Blaine had spluttered his protests and tried to reject it.  He doesn’t let anyone touch his regular drip coffee maker either, with the broken lid, nor his tea kettle.  Not that anyone is ever in his apartment to try such a thing.  
  
And he’s even a little possessive, protective, of the store machines - great, hulking things with no finesse, no personality at all, but he still shudders a little every time a new hire gets on a bar for the first time.  Touches his machines.  Moves his shot glasses.  Doesn’t time the shots properly throughout the day, or wipe down the steam wand with the sanitizing rag just so.  
  
Blaine knows he can  _particular_  about his drinks, and it’s not worth it to hurt someone’s feelings over a little thing like coffee if they make him something unpalatable.  He’s been a barista for more than five years; he knows what he likes.  And Blaine would never walk into a chef’s kitchen and offer to make them something for brunch.  Or take an artist’s brush from their hands and add a few more dabs of paint.  
  
“You know my coffee order,” Kurt says, with a tiny, too-casual shrug, his long fingers tracing an aimless pattern on the countertop.  Blaine knows actors, knows how people use body language to project a certain air, and Kurt is trying to conceal something. Blaine just doesn’t know what.  “It only seems fair that I know yours too.”  
  
“Oh,” Blaine ducks his head away from Kurt’s curious, wide-eyed gaze, and stares at the still-empty cup in his hands that bears Kurt’s name in Sugar’s ridiculously looping scrawl.  
  
 _Grande drip.  Dark, rich roast - Verona, maybe, because it pairs so well with chocolate.  With just enough cream to turn it a honey-brown.  And cinnamon sprinkled on top so I can watch it swirl like a private galaxy when I stir the cream._  
  
“Look,” Kurt continues, voice suddenly sounding a little nervous, a little choked, before Blaine can say anything.  “I’m trying to ask you out, ok?  I was trying to be all suave and subtle about it, because this is your place of work and all and every guy likes to be charming, but like the thing with the nametag, it doesn’t seem to be working.”  Kurt tilts his head a little, trying to catch Blaine’s averted eyes and slow the restless beating of his heart.  
  
“So, barista Blaine, will you go out with me?  On a date.  Somewhere that isn’t a Starbucks?”  
  
Blaine knows he can be a little clueless sometimes, but he hadn’t realized just how fucking dense he really is.  Everything narrows to Kurt’s eyes on his, brilliant and glittering, and the slight curve of his mouth, ever hopeful.  He knows the store has come to a halt around them (Kurt wasn’t exactly whispering), and customers tend to enjoy a bit of gossip, and his coworkers are gaping at him.  But he doesn’t care; he hardly registers it at all.  
  
The world is Kurt - tall, gorgeous, bold Kurt, who could have anyone he wanted, anyone, and he seems to want Blaine.  Blaine who is small and overlooked.  Except suddenly he’s not, not by Kurt.  
  
Blaine thinks about his assignment for class, about finding a moment, the right moment, to capture, to hold onto, to put into words and song.  
  
This is a moment.  
  
Blaine opens and closes his mouth, struggling for words, the right words.  He wishes he had actors and a stage to play out for Kurt the precise fluttering of his heart, the pounding of his pulse - insistent, eager,  _yes_  - the twisting, knotted feeling in his gut.  He’s always been better when others are singing and reciting his words for him.  
  
“I - yes,” he finally breathes out, and the elated look that breaks out across Kurt’s face is enough to carry him through the rest of the day, the week.  The fucking year.  
  
 _I’m crazy about you_ , Blaine thinks.  _And I don’t even know you._  
  
“I would like that.  Very much.”  
  
“Great!  Ok.  Yes.”  Kurt bounces a little on his toes.    
  
Blaine wants to reach out and take Kurt’s hand; wants to rip his apron off, leap over the counter, and run out of the store, Kurt’s hand wrapped up in his, long fingers interlaced with his own.  He wants to get Kurt out of the overblown bustle of Times Square and show Kurt all his favorite pieces of the city; the little hidden away parks that are generally empty and wild with overgrown roses; the tiny one-act theatres held together tenuously by love and sweat and appreciation for the craft.  But if it’s touristy things Kurt likes, then Blaine wants to get him up to the observation deck of Rockefeller so they can watch the autumn sunset glinting off the Empire State Building with the Hudson shimmering in the background.  
  
He wants to take Kurt back to his apartment - his tiny, stupid apartment with the warped floorboard and the bathroom sink that isn’t quite big enough for his own things, let alone someone else’s.  But the rug in the living room is a deep, gorgeous burgundy, and the dresser in his bedroom was hand-carved by his grandfather, and maybe Kurt’s eyes won’t cloud over with the realization of Blaine’s financial situation, maybe it won’t matter at all.  Because Blaine wants to sit Kurt down on his couch and show him what he’s been working on for class; he’s pretty sure he’s been writing about Kurt since the first day he laid eyes on him.  
  
Blaine  _wants_ , and that’s a start.  That’s enough.  
  
“Ah,” Kurt clears his throat and Blaine realizes he’s been staring moonily at Kurt for god knows how long.  “How should I, uh, get in contact with you?  Should I come back later - do you live here or something?”  
  
Blaine takes the Sharpie that’s perpetually tucked into the pocket of his apron and uncaps it.  He hears, even over the din of the store, the sharp intake of Kurt’s breath.  He feels like a cliché, like a poorly written romantic comedy with a cheesy soundtrack and a predictable ending.  But even biting down on his lower lip can’t hide his smile as he writes out his cellphone number on the cup, his handwriting neat and small.  Perfectly legible.  
  
Kurt’s fingers brush his when he takes the cup from Blaine once his drink is finished, and Blaine knows, just knows, it’s on purpose this time.  He laughs, he can’t help it.  It’s strange and wonderful and he’ll take it while he can get it.


	5. Ristretto

Blaine spends the rest of his shift studiously ignoring the quiet weight of the phone in his pocket.  He knows he’s not supposed to have it on the floor, but he doesn’t give a damn.  Not that day.  There are some things more important than company policy.  He’d sneaked his phone out of his bag during his lunch break and tried not to feel cold disappointment when there wasn’t already a missed call or text message.  
  
He doesn’t think Kurt is the type of guy to ask someone out and then forget to call, but Blaine remembers that he doesn’t really know Kurt, not beyond a drink order and a job title. Kurt is probably a busy man; he has an important job, a life.  He’s probably swamped at work and doesn’t have a few moments to call some barista around the block. More likely, Blaine thinks with a dull ache in his chest, he’s got a dozen phone numbers to choose from.  
  
Blaine doesn’t know, can’t know, that Kurt’s been staring at the long-empty cup sitting on his desk all day, at the number that he’s already entered into his cellphone contacts, put into his computer, and scribbled down on several Post-Its throughout his office.  Just in case.  
  
The number he’s already memorized.  
  
Blaine is on his final ten of his shift, eager to take the long subway ride home and scrub the scent-stain of coffee off his body.  He’s sitting at the back of the store where there are fewer customers and nursing an iced coffee when his phone rings, buzzing on the table where Blaine had placed it.  
  
His heart leaps into his throat at the unfamiliar number flashing on the screen and all the noise of the store seems to fade away.  
  
“Hello?”  Blaine answers, tentatively, trying to conceal the eager tightness in his throat.  It could be anyone; a sales call, a wrong number, his brother from a hotel.  Anyone.  He props an elbow onto the table, drawing into himself just a little.  
  
“Hi, is this Blaine?”  His voice is light, almost breathless.  Perfect.  “This is Kurt.  Uhm, customer-barista-relationship-boundary-crossing Kurt.”  
  
Blaine bites down on the tip of his thumb to keep from making an embarrassing sound into the phone.  “Hi, Kurt.”  He holds the name on his tongue a beat too long, savoring it.  
  
“Hi.  I hope this is a good time.  I couldn’t wait any longer to call you.”  
  
“Oh,”  _Oh_.  “No, that’s - that’s fine.”  Blaine wants to wriggle happily in his chair, wants to leap onto the table and belt out an aria.  
  
“And Carrie wouldn’t let me use the bathroom again until I did.  She told me to call you, insisted really.  She told me not to make you wait a moment longer even though I thought maybe I was going to come off too strong and pushy if I called you the second I got into the office, which is what I wanted to do.  Who does she think she is?  Doling out relationship advice like that?  Like she knows what she’s talking about.”  
  
Blaine huffs a laugh.  He’s imagining Kurt pacing restlessly around his office, and maybe Carrie is grinning at him through the open door, waiting expectantly for the outcome of the call.  Up at the bar, Jeff is craning over the counter.  He gives Blaine a thumbs up with a huge smile, and then switches to a thumbs down with an exaggerated frown.  Blaine shakes his head, embarrassed, but giddy, and offers back his own thumbs up.  Jeff  _whoops_ , startling a waiting customer,and almost knocks over a pitcher of milk.  
  
“I’m glad you called.”  
  
“Me too.”  There’s a pause, and Blaine swears he can hear Kurt breathing.  “So, I don’t know the finer details of your crazy schedule, but are you free tomorrow afternoon? I don’t work, and I figured you didn’t have class on the weekend.”  
  
 _Tomorrow_ , Blaine thinks.  _Less than a day away._  
  
“I’m free.”  Blaine works that Sunday, but his Saturday is wide open.  He tries to keep at least one day of every weekend (both if he can swing it) for homework and maybe a few moments to himself.  
  
“Perfect.  There’s a restaurant in Union Square, the Heartland Brewery.  I’d like to take you there.”  
  
Blaine knows the area, if not the restaurant.  It’s not terribly far from where he lives, but it’s even farther from Kurt’s office.  He wonders where Kurt lives.  It doesn’t seem quite appropriate to ask.  
  
“I don’t have a car.” Blaine says, worrying at his thumbnail with his teeth a little.   _I can’t pick you up, like a proper gentleman._  
  
“I don’t either.  Can you meet me on the corner of Union Square and 16th? There’s an old bank building with these great big columns.  Can’t miss it.  I’ll be there. The restaurant is a little ways away from where I want to take you after, but I love it.  It’s got a special little place in my heart.”  
  
 _Anything that’s dear to your heart is good enough for me,_  Blaine thinks, and he sees the pile of papers on his coffee table in his apartment.  Those pages hold the notes of the color of Kurt’s eyes and the verses of the curve of his back.  
  
“What time?”  
  
“Noon.  Is noon good for you?  I figured we could have lunch and then go for a little walk through the park.  The weather is supposed to be perfect.”  
  
“It sounds lovely.”  
  
“Great, ok.  I should, I should let you go.  You’ve probably got a hundred customers demanding their afternoon dose of caffeine and I won’t be the one to cause the riot if they don’t get it.”  
  
Blaine’s pulse quickens just at the sound of Kurt’s laugh, heartier than the delicateness of his mouth would suggest.  
  
“Tomorrow then?”  Kurt asks.  “Noon?”  He suddenly sounds hesitant, curiously unsure, as if he’s double-checking that Blaine will be there.  There’s nowhere else Blaine can imagine being.  
  
“Noon.”  
  
“Ok, see you then.  Bye, Blaine.”  
  
“Bye.”  
  
Blaine is careful to save Kurt’s number into his phone contacts before he gets back to work, although he still doesn’t know Kurt’s last name.  Nothing can ruin the rest of his day.  Not the order of fifteen Frappuccinos that comes in, all slightly different from each other.  Not the carafe of milk that gets elbowed off the counter in the lobby and spills all over the floor.  Not the kid who throws up in the bathroom.  Nothing can dull the light in his heart nor dampen the bounce in his step.  
  
***  
  
Blaine is early for their date,  _date_ , but Kurt is even earlier, and Blaine slows his pace to let his eyes linger on the tall man who’s leaning with his ever-present casual grace against one of the building’s columns.  
  
Kurt’s wearing jeans, the first time Blaine has seen him in a pair, and they skim the length of his long, lean legs without being uncomfortably tight.  There’s an artful tear in the left thigh that Blaine tries not to linger on.  He’s got a fitted, white shirt on with the top couple of buttons undone and the sleeves pushed up to his elbows, exposing his strong forearms, and a black vest buttoned up over the shirt.  When he gets closer, Blaine spots a length of chain attached from Kurt’s lapel to his buttons and there’s even a pocket square tucked into the vest, a bright splash of red against the dark fabric.  His eyes are hidden behind a pair of black wayfarers, and Blaine can only imagine what shade of blue they are today.  
  
Blaine glances down at his own outfit.  It took him forever to decide on the white pants that cling to his thighs and end above his ankles, and the navy and white striped shirt with the wide collar that does wonderful things to his shoulders.  His boat shoes are his favorite pair and comfortable to walk in. The pants, well, the pants make his ass look incredible, not that that’s the reason he picked them.  It’s not.  That would be presumptuous of him.  
  
He knows he has nothing in his limited closet that could compete with Kurt, but when Kurt suddenly turns his way, catches sight of him, and a smile quirks his mouth before his teeth bite down on his lower lip a little, Blaine thinks maybe he did all right.  
  
“Blaine,” Kurt says, pushing away from the wall and taking a few steps towards him.    
  
Blaine doesn’t know if they’re supposed to hug, or shake hands, or what, but Kurt makes the decision for him, ducking in and pressing a quick, light kiss to his cheek.  Blaine’s breath catches in his throat and his skin burns with the memory of it all afternoon.  
  
“Hi.  You look great.”  It’s not even an empty compliment; Kurt always looks amazing.  
  
“Ah, thank you.  It’s my favorite vest.  You look lovely.  It’s nice to see you out of that apron and those polos.  And those pants are-” Kurt swallows, and Blaine watches in amazement as a blush stains his cheeks.  “They look good on you.”  
  
 _He noticed._  
  
“Thanks.”  Blaine wants to rub at the back of his neck nervously.  
  
“Well,” Kurt clears his throat.  “Shall we?” Kurt doesn’t quite take his arm to lead him down the block to the restaurant, but it seems like he wants to.  Kurt’s fingers brush his wrist as they walk.  “I thought we might sit outside?”  
  
Blaine, who spends so much time indoors - at school, at work, in his apartment - relishes the chance to spend the whole day outside.  It’s a perfectly lovely day for it too, just warm enough to leave his cardigan draped over the back of his chair and the breeze isn’t so strong as to blow their napkins around - just enough to ruffle Blaine’s curls and cool the back of his neck when Kurt’s gaze, bright and happy once he’s taken his sunglasses off and tucked them into his shirt, becomes too much.  
  
He hasn’t been on a date in what feels like forever, but this, this is easy, sitting across from Kurt on a warm, late summer afternoon.  Their knees don’t quite knock under the table, but their feet keep bumping together, and Blaine’s pulse quickens at every single touch.  He leans his chin on the heel of his hand and just gazes at Kurt.  
  
Kurt makes it easy, with his gift for conversation and quick, infectious smile.  Blaine is perfectly content to listen as Kurt chatters away about his new job and where he went to school and what he studied.  He says everything so nonchalantly - everything that he’s accomplished already, and those things that he wants next for his life.  He talks about them with pride, yes, but without ego or arrogance, as if his accomplishments are merely goals he sought and attained.  Kurt talks about himself as though he’s just a guy with a decent job who’s making a life for himself the best way he knows how, but Blaine is pretty sure Kurt’s the most interesting person he’s ever met.  
  
And Kurt draws pieces of Blaine’s own story out of him, dissatisfied to let Blaine shrug and play it off like there’s nothing to tell.  There is.  The wide-eyed wonder in Kurt’s eyes when Blaine tells him that he’s going for his master’s in musical theatre writing and that he dreams of composing something for Broadway is enough to keep Blaine talking, even when he’s told Kurt more about himself than he thinks he’s ever told anyone else.  
  
Blaine is pretty sure he could talk to Kurt past dinner and into the long hours of the morning, for as long as Kurt wants to listen.  Quiet hope rises that Kurt might want that too.  
  
The only hiccup comes (and Blaine knew it would), when the check arrives and he tries to slide some money onto the little tray, only to have Kurt pull it out of his reach and drop enough cash down for the waiter to take.  
  
“Nope.  Nice try.  I asked you out - I pay.”  Kurt grins at Blaine and nudges at his bare ankle with his foot before rising from his chair and grabbing for his jacket, waiting for Blaine to stand too.  “You can ask  _me_ out next time and then  _you_  can pay.”  
  
 _Next time_ , Blaine thinks, with helpless wonder bubbling inside of him.  
  
***  
  
When Kurt said they were going for a walk in the park, Blaine had assumed that meant at Union Square Park, just across the street from the restaurant.  But Kurt’s plans are just bit grander.  Blaine only realizes where they’re going when Kurt directs him down into the subway and they head north all the way up to the 81st Street stop.  
  
It’s a busy Saturday afternoon and the subway car is full of tourists and families going to the museum, or Central Park, like Kurt and Blaine are.  But it means that the subway is standing room only, and the crowd presses Blaine close to Kurt.  He’s shorter than Kurt, by a good couple of inches, and it brings him face to face with Kurt’s collarbone, the tender base of his throat.  He’s sure he can see the fluttering of Kurt’s pulse under the thin skin and the urge to lean in closer, bury his face in that throat and breathe in deep, threatens to overwhelm Blaine.  Kurt smells of some undoubtedly expensive cologne that Blaine can’t name, light and crisp, and of the warm summer air.  
  
Blaine figures out where they’re going about five minutes into their stroll through the rolling green hills of Central Park, following the winding pathways towards their destination at the center, but he says nothing, just lets Kurt lead the way.  The sunlight glints in the lighter highlights of Kurt’s hair and smoothes across his pale cheeks, and Kurt’s arm keeps brushing against his, skin against skin where both of their sleeves are pushed up.  They could be touring the sewer system and he wouldn’t care.   
  
They stop when a large, granite structure rises up out of the scenery, perched up on a huge rock.  Kurt’s almost bouncing on his toes in excitement, the way he did when Blaine said yes to their date.  
  
“I present to you, the Belvedere Castle.” Kurt stretches his hands out towards the building, a clear  _ta-da_.  Blaine looks up at the restored castle and bites his lip.  
  
“It’s meant to be a Victorian folly, although the architecture is really Gothic and Romanesque.  Its only purpose is to be an interesting, yet completely overblown decoration.  It’s kind of like having a beautifully tailored, perfectly understated tuxedo on, and then wearing a leopard print top hat and twirling a matching cane. Too much, you know?”  
  
Blaine smiles at the image.  “Sometimes there’s a time and place for a leopard print top hat.”  
  
The grin Kurt flashes at him, surprised and delighted, sends a pleased shiver down Blaine’s spine.  
  
“Want to go up to the top?  You’re not afraid of heights, are you?”  
  
“Not at all.”  
  
Blaine follows Kurt into the castle and up the stairs to the top.  The view from the terrace is magnificent, breathtaking, even if Blaine’s seen it a hundred times before.  It’s arguably one of the best views of the park and of the skyline.  New York is loud and bustling and frenetic, but Central Park is an oasis, still and silent, sunken down into the earth while the city rages above.  
  
“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”  Kurt asks, leaning against the balustrade.  The Great Lawn is stretched out beneath them, rolling and verdant, dotted with couples and families and tourists, and the pond glitters in the sunlight, ducks leaving ripples across the surface.  Behind it all the city rises, effortlessly impressive.  
  
But Blaine’s attention is elsewhere.  He lets his eyes roam Kurt’s face – memorizing every freckle, every line.  He doesn’t know if he’ll have a second chance to do this.  He lingers on the line of Kurt’s jaw, the slope of his nose, the sweep of his eyelashes.  The gradation of the color in his hair.  There’s a scar on the side of his neck he wants to ask about.  
  
 _Beautiful,_ Blaine thinks _. Exquisite_.  
  
“I mean,” Kurt continues. Blaine realizes he’s stopped listening and is just staring at Kurt with what is probably the dopiest, mooniest expression ever. “I know it’s kind of clichéd and touristy and common, but come on!  It’s Central Park.  Everyone needs to experience a taste of it.  It’s just so classic New York.  What?  What’s that look on your face?”  
  
“I live here, Kurt.”  Blaine smiles, tries not to laugh at the slightly affronted expression that crosses Kurt’s lovely features.  “I’ve lived here going on five years.”  
  
“Well shit,” he laughs and Blaine can hear the self-deprecation in it.  “This is incredibly boring for you, isn’t it?  Your name, your number - I just can’t seem to pull off suave and debonair with you, can I?”  
  
“It’s not boring.” Blaine looks down, where Kurt’s hands are draped over the edge of the wall.  He swallows and tastes something sweet, like hope.  Like courage.  He reaches out and takes one of Kurt’s hands in his, twining their fingers together. “I’m with you.  It couldn’t possibly be boring.”  
  
The smile that Kurt gives him over his shoulder is so sweet, so delicate it breaks something loose in Blaine’s chest that’s been lodged there for what feels like forever.  
  
“You are adorable,” Kurt whispers and suddenly he’s leaning in, lips brushing so light, so tender across Blaine’s that he would swear he imagines it, if it weren’t for the shudder that wracks through him at the light touch, the way his heart pounds staccato against his ribs.  He’s clutching at Kurt’s hand so tight it must hurt.  
  
“Fish,” Blaine murmurs, brain so disconnected from his mouth he doesn’t even know he’s speaking until Kurt’s pulled back from him, just the slightest bit.  
  
“I - what?”  Kurt’s voice is rougher than usual, and the slightly deeper timbre sends a fresh wave of shivers through Blaine.  He wants to hear every note that Kurt’s voice can make.  
  
“I ate fish for lunch.  My breath.  I - I don’t have any gum.”  
  
“Oh, Blaine.  Let me show you how much I don’t care,” Kurt whispers, breath ghosting against Blaine’s mouth and then his lips are there again.  Right there.  Pressing warm and sweet and so fucking intimate it rocks Blaine to his core.  A song is taking shape in his heart.  
  
Blaine’s been kissed before, but not like this.  Not like he’s some precious wonderful thing. He can hear the sharp intake of Kurt’s breath, feel the smile pressed against his own mouth.  It’s cream and citrus and spice and Blaine wants to capture the taste, hold on to it forever.  
  
And maybe there’s music playing softly somewhere in the distance.  Another time Blaine will ask Kurt to dance with him to it.


	6. Macchiato

Blaine’s world is so different now.

His life has turned from an endless succession of classes and work, days without true beginning or end, just a continual rolling of scheduled appointments and requirements, assignments and espresso shots, into something better, something more.  His life had been monotonous, boring, safe, and he hadn’t even realized it.  But now there’s Kurt - bold, beautiful Kurt with his incredible talent and drive and ambition.  Kurt with his arresting eyes and the subtle strength of his hands enfolded with Blaine’s; the warmth of his smile and the scent of his scarf when he drapes it playfully around Blaine’s neck and uses the ends to pull him into a kiss. Now Blaine’s life is  _more_.

Kurt who has a last name ( _Hummel, one day people will know it_ ) and an address ( _the very outskirts of Greenwich Village, I only got the place because I’m subletting from a desperate person_ ) and a father ( _Burt, he’s a mechanic and he wants to talk to you_ ) who still lives in Ohio and calls him at least three times a week and worries when he doesn’t send an email or text message for more than a day.  Blaine hasn’t spoken to Burt yet, fathers intimidate him, but he wants to.  He wants to impress the man who gave him Kurt, and prove to him he’s worthy of his son.  Sometimes he listens as Kurt talks to his dad on the phone, pacing around Blaine’s cramped apartment, touching the mementos on his bookshelf, laughing at some anecdote, reassuring his dad over and other that yes, everything’s good, yes, work is hard but he loves it more and more every day,  _yes_ , he’s happy.

He says the last looking straight at Blaine from across the living room, eyes a deep blue in the warm lighting of Blaine’s floor lamps.

Sometimes Blaine has to sit back and wonder what it is in Kurt that he’s never met before.

It’s not that Blaine doesn’t have friends, he does, good ones, but now Blaine’s cellphone buzzes with texts from Kurt throughout the day, little messages of nothing at all.

_Miss you.  Why isn’t it tomorrow?  
_ _Guy on the 23rd floor - his pants are offensively yellow.  
_ _The office coffee sucks.  
_ _This fabric is the color of your eyes when I kiss you._

Blaine goes on dates.  There are dates, with Kurt.  He is  _dating_ Kurt.  Lunch dates and dinner dates, tiny restaurants and vast museums, art galleries and parks.  There is the top of Rockefeller Center with the sunset in Kurt’s eyes and the wind ruffling his hair.

There’s a bit of a crowd that evening - couples, families, tourists - but Kurt takes his hand anyway and presses a sweet kiss to his knuckles before sliding his arm around Blaine’s waist and fitting him close to the curve of his own body.  Blaine leans his cheek against Kurt’s shoulder and watches the last rays of October sunlight glimmer off the Empire State Building.  Blaine has been happy before, but he’s never been content, not the way he is in that moment.

There’s a glorious Sunday morning as well, when he meets Kurt in Central Park only to find Kurt with an honest-to-god picnic basket and huge plaid blanket waiting for him.  There is fruit and cheese and crackers and all manner of delectable little treats that Blaine doesn’t know if Kurt made or bought, and he doesn’t care either way.  No one has ever fed him persimmons before.  The weather is cooling, autumn sliding into New York as the leaves turn and twist and fall, but Blaine wore a thick, comfortable sweater and the look in Kurt’s eyes, the curve of his smile when Blaine let himself lick delicately at the juice on Kurt’s fingertips, kept Blaine warm.

And there are dates that aren’t really dates at all.  There are times when Kurt shows up at his Starbucks an hour earlier than usual (Kurt keeps Blaine’s ever-changing schedule on his phone) and takes a seat at a small table near a window and facing the bar, where he can look up from his book and catch Blaine’s eye, make him blush and fumble with his cups.  He orders his drink in a for-here cup, and Blaine takes care to warm the mug with hot water before crafting the mocha.  He won’t pour steaming milk into a cold mug, especially not for Kurt.  He wants to draw a heart, a fucking  _heart_ , in a thin layer of foam on top, where the lid of a paper cup can’t cover it.  He settles for an intricate rosette and Kurt’s eyes light up with delight when Blaine brings the cup out to the table and sets it down in front of him.

Those mornings, Blaine finds reasons to slide out from behind the bar (even though it’s always busy and he’s the best) and linger around Kurt’s table.  He brings a sanitizing rag and plays at wiping down nearby tables, the condiment counter, the windowsill.  Anything to stay close to Kurt for a few moments.  He can’t stop the flutter of his heart and the flush in his cheeks when he feels Kurt reach out and tug gently on his apron strings.  Jeff winks obnoxiously at him and bumps his shoulder when he finally makes his way back behind the bar where he’s supposed to be.

There are other things that change, things that Blaine hadn’t even considered, but of course they must. Where once his apartment was still and silent, save the gentle strains of his music, it’s now so often filled with the quiet sounds of Kurt.  The creak of his footsteps against the floorboards; the clatter of his pencils on the table and the rustle of his sketchbooks; the whisper of his clothes when Blaine remembers that he can pull Kurt onto his lap and run his hands through his hair, down his back, across his thighs.  He has permission. He’s wanted.

It’s where they are now, twined on Blaine’s couch, Kurt’s sketches knocked aside and Blaine’s sheet music scattered on the floor.  He’d forgotten what this could be like - heat and closeness, lips and hands and needy breath ghosting across his ear.  He’d shoved want and desire deep down where it wouldn’t get in the way, wouldn’t get rejected or bruised.

But he  _wants_  now.  He wants the weight of Kurt pressing him down into the cushions, thighs spread, knees on either side of his hips.  He wants the scratch of Kurt’s fingers through his hair, the way his thumbs brush across his cheekbones as he angles his head for a better, sweeter, deeper kiss.  He wants  _Kurt,_  whose eyes turn a stormy grey as the heat rises, whose lips taste of cream and oranges, and whose skin is so soft and hot to the touch when Blaine finds the courage to get his hands under Kurt’s layers.

“You taste like coffee,” Kurt says, he  _whimpers_ , against the prominent muscle in Blaine’s neck, the one that has his hip shifting restlessly under Kurt’s weight.

“Oh god.  I’m sorry.”  Blaine wants to push him away, but he can’t get his hands to do anything but pull him closer, fingers digging desperately into firm flesh.  “I showered, but it never comes out.”  He’s sure he must stink.  Kurt’s never said anything, probably never would, but Blaine’s sure his whole apartment must reek of espresso and milk.

“No, it’s good.”  Kurt presses his face deeper into the curve of Blaine’s neck, tongue mapping the veins. Blaine shivers and tastes crema on the back of his tongue.  “It’s coffee and earth and sunlight.  It’s you.”

 _Oh_.

Blaine wants Kurt to know everything about him.  His family - his brother who Kurt probably actually knows of and just doesn’t realize it; his fears - the little ones (spiders, foul ball territory at a baseball game) and the massive (failure, his ten-year anniversary at Starbucks).  He wants Kurt to know that his master’s work is centered on discovering the lyrics of the breadth of his shoulders and the composition of the depth of his heart.

Blaine’s sheets and pillows smell of coffee, he’s sure, and Kurt’s about to find that out too.

***

Blaine has a new key to his front door cut.  He has a spare that hangs on a board in his kitchen, but he needs that for when his brother comes into town and crashes on his couch instead of in the hotel that would certainly be provided for him.  And besides, Blaine likes the way the new key looks - shiny and sharp to the touch when he presses his thumb against the teeth.

He hasn’t given it to Kurt, not yet, but it sits in the top drawer of his dresser.  Blaine is waiting for the opportune moment to press it into the palm of Kurt’s hand, tentative hope fluttering against his ribs.  He has to be sure Kurt will accept it; he doesn’t know what he’d do if Kurt said  _no thank you_.

Blaine is thinking about it, one night a few weeks later, when he buzzes Kurt into his apartment.  He thinks about how nice it would be to just hear the door open, followed by the soft padding of Kurt’s boots against the old hardwood as he lets himself into Blaine’s space.  Or to come home from class or a late shift and find Kurt already comfortable on his sofa – maybe with the TV on in the background while he contemplates any work he’s brought with him.  Or maybe he’ll already be asleep – those rare nights when Blaine stays much too late at school – curled up in Blaine’s bed.  His body will shift; make room when Blaine slides in with him, shuffling into his arms.

That night, Kurt greets him with a long kiss when Blaine opens the door, almost playful in the way his tongue teases against Blaine’s lips.  Blaine is never going to get over the wonder of kissing Kurt.  How is he even allowed this?

Kurt’s fingers brush against his stomach as he passes and he drops his satchel ( _distressed leather, maybe two weeks rent_ ) on top of Blaine’s book bag in the chair by the door, toeing his boots off at the same time. Blaine is so quickly coming to love the messy pile their belongings make.

“How was your day, dear?” Kurt asks with a flirtatious little grin that makes Blaine’s stomach wriggle happily.  It might have something to do with the way Kurt’s fingers touch his wrist as he says it.

“Just lovely,” Blaine returns.   _Someone threw an entire cup of coffee into the trash and it leaked all over the floor_ , but the sticky memory of it fades as the closeness of Kurt takes over.  Blaine curls his fingers into the edge of Kurt’s scarf, forest green this time and cool to the touch, and tugs Kurt down into another soft kiss. His breath comes on a gasp, the way it always does at the touch of Kurt’s mouth on his.

“And how was yours?”

“Better,” Kurt’s fingers tangle in his curls.  “Now that I’m home with you.”  He says it with such uncomplicated conviction, such truth, that it aches deep in Blaine’s chest, his fucking  _soul_.  He can hear his future in six simple words.

Blaine follows Kurt into his tiny kitchen and together they rustle up something to eat.  Kurt is so good at turning the random purchases in Blaine’s kitchen into something grand.  And Blaine loves the way Kurt’s shoulder bumps against his, the way his hand slides, low and possessive, down Blaine’s hip.  He’s never going to get over this either – the ease with which Kurt touches him, like he’s beloved and worthy of it.  No hesitation, no concerns - just effortless intimacy.  Blaine soaks it up, holds it safe just under his skin, for the times when Kurt might not be there.

They eat in the kitchen, leaning against the counter, taking bites off each other’s plates even though they have the same thing.

“So,” Kurt begins, when the food is gone and Blaine’s been stroking the line of Kurt’s thumb for a few minutes, careful not to aggravate what looks like a vicious papercut.  Or scissor-cut.  He sounds a little nervous, if excited.  Eager.

“There’s an event coming up, a gala, if you will, celebrating a new line or some such.  Will you accompany me?”  Kurt takes a step back and sketches a messy little bow, extending his hand out to Blaine.  His eyes are bright and sparkling, a shade shy of mischievous. 

But Blaine blanches; his fingers go cold.  It’s like when Kurt paid for their first date, only worse.  It’s so much worse.  He has a couple of suits, but nothing in his small wardrobe will do for a Vogue party.  A  _gala_.  He’ll stand out, stick out – the poor kid in the old clothes.  He’ll embarrass Kurt, who surely has a collection of expensive, designer suits and tuxes, tailor-made just for him.  The food churning in his stomach threatens reappearance.

“I’m not, I don’t-” he tries to take a step away, but the counter is right there, digging into his lower back.  “I don’t have anything to wear,” he says, helpless, drowning.  The look on Kurt’s face – confused, sharply hurt – floods his veins with ice.  He’s never refused Kurt’s hand since the day they met.  He’s never wanted to make Kurt anything less than perfectly, ridiculously happy, and he can’t even do that.

“I don’t have any money,” he confesses on an agonizing gust of breath, as if it weren’t painfully, horribly obvious.

And this is how it tastes when the milk goes sour, when the espresso turns bitter.

“Oh, Blaine.”  Kurt’s face softens, the sharp edges from the moment before smoothing.  His body twitches, like he wants to step forward, but he catches himself.  “I can’t begin to tell you how much I don’t give a shit about that.  Wait, do you think I’m rich or something?  Oh my god, you think I’m rich.  Blaine, I’m not.  I get by.  This job - it’s the first time I’ve had extra cash to my name.”

“But your clothes?”  Blaine shakes his head.  It doesn’t make any sense. 

“My clothes?  I make them, some of them.  Others, I get on sale.  So what if they’re last season?  If it looks good, it looks good.  Spring collection, fall collection - like it fucking matters.”  Kurt finally does step forward, right up close into Blaine’s space, and slides his arms around his shoulders.  His eyes are so bright, so full of something unnamable that it breaks Blaine’s heart, just a little.

“My dad’s a mechanic,” Kurt says softly, his forehead pressed to Blaine’s.  “I went to school on a scholarship. I live in a studio outside of the Village that I can only afford because the woman I’m subletting it from ran off to Bucharest for a year.  Blaine,” his voice is aching, seemingly desperate for Blaine to understand.  He’s starting to.

“Blaine, whatever you’re thinking, whatever you’ve assumed, we’re not that different from each other.  There isn’t some insurmountable socio-economic distance between us.  We’re both just getting by in this big, crazy, stupid fucking city.  But I think,” Kurt brushes his lips across Blaine’s temple, and Blaine trembles.  “I think we could get by so much better if we do it together.”

Blaine sucks in a breath, sharp and aching.  His heart is full-to-bursting and cracks are spreading all along his skin; he thinks he’s being held together just by the strength of Kurt’s arms around him.  He surges forward, finding Kurt’s mouth in a desperate kiss.

“I’m sorry,” he murmurs.  He needs to fix this, and he needs to let Kurt fix the broken, jagged pieces of him.

“There’s nothing to be sorry for.”  Kurt’s hands slide up his neck, into his hair again.  “Let me dress you.”

“What?” 

“Let me dress you, for the gala.  I want to.  Carrie knows, about you, about us.  Of course she knows.  I’ve been blathering on about you since day one.  I’m sure she’ll let me, uh, appropriate some things from the Vogue closet for you.  She’s the one who told me to invite you anyway.  I wasn’t sure if I’d be allowed a date or not.  I didn’t know if assistants got plus-ones.”

Blaine closes his eyes and thinks about every dance he didn’t go to. 

He’ll go to the gala with Kurt, of course he will.  He’ll gladly take his offered arm and wear matching bowties or pocket squares if that’s what Kurt wants.  It’s what he wants too.  He’ll dance the night away if there’s dancing to be had, and if not he’ll sit with Kurt at their designated table, making small talk with his coworkers, his boss.  He’ll try not to be completely intimidated by the fact that the room is full of industry giants and celebrities.  Kurt will be there, holding his hand on top of the table, thumb swiping rhythmically, comfortingly across the metal band on his middle finger, the only jewelry he wears.

Blaine feels the brush of Kurt’s lips against his damp cheek; he didn’t know he’d been crying.  The doubt, the fear leaves him, slips free of the dark moorings inside of him, and it brings him one step closer to Kurt, to love.


	7. Corretto

“Are you sure this ok?”  Blaine’s voice is low and soft in his ear, hushed as he’s pressed close to Kurt, as if he’s trying to conceal himself within the shadow of Kurt’s body.

Kurt rolls his eyes, just a little, for what feels like the millionth time that day.  Blaine’s been jittery and anxious all morning, worrying at his thumbnail with his teeth, tapping out the rhythms to the songs coming together in his head.  The Vogue party is that night, and no amount of calming reassurances or gentle strokes down his back seem to be able to assuage his nerves.  Kurt keeps trying though.

He’s been with Blaine long enough (although not really that long at all), he knows Blaine well enough now, to have some understanding of where his reticence and apprehension come from.  Blaine is shy – sweet and kind and so incredibly caring that sometimes Kurt feels wholly unworthy of Blaine’s time and attention.  But he’s shy; he worries about the impressions he makes on others, and is constantly concerned about his financial situation, which isn’t a  _situation_  at all, not to Kurt.  It’s just a fact, and it doesn’t change the way Kurt feels about Blaine in any capacity.

The size of Blaine’s bank account has nothing to do with the way his fingers stroke against Kurt’s hips, the circling of his thumbs all at once soothing and breathtakingly erotic.  It has no impact on the way he sets his phone alarm to buzz on those mornings when he has to get up before dawn for work and Kurt has stayed the night.  Kurt still wakes when Blaine gets up, but it’s to the shifting of the bed as Blaine eases from it and the creaking of his pipes when he showers, not to the obnoxious blaring of an alarm in his ear.  If Kurt has to wake up before the sun once in a while (and he’s happy to do so if it means falling asleep with the heat of Blaine’s body and the coffee-rich scent of his skin), then it’s at least better to wake to the gentle padding of Blaine’s bare feet against the hardwood as he gets dressed as quietly as possible.

And Blaine’s finances say nothing about warmth in his eyes each and every time he sees Kurt.  There’s a light in Blaine’s eyes, all the time, shining from some place deep inside of him that somehow hasn’t been tarnished, some place that isn’t worn down rough and raw.  It makes Kurt’s stomach swoop and his chest ache, the way Blaine looks at him, whiskey-warm and passionate.  Like he’s astonishing and remarkable and _perfect_.  He knows he’s not, no one is, but Blaine has a way of making him  _feel_  perfect.  And that’s more than enough.

Kurt’s sure there are still things about Blaine, his past, and his family that he doesn’t know about.  Things Blaine must keep locked down tight so they can’t hurt him anymore. But in the two and a half months ( _almost three_ ) months that they’ve been together, Kurt has watched a change take place in Blaine, fragile and delicate, but there nonetheless.  It’s not like Blaine is coming out of a shell – he was never hiding in one to begin with – but it’s as if he’s slowly cutting away the threads and ties that were holding him down, holding him back.  Kurt doesn’t push, won’t (it’s not his place to do for Blaine what he must do for himself), but Blaine is finding himself again at his own pace.  Kurt just wants to be there when he does. 

He knows it’s too soon for promises or declarations, but Kurt can feel the words gathering in his throat, bubbling bright in his chest.  Sometimes he looks over to find Blaine staring at him with those huge eyes of his, adoration shining brilliant and clear, and he thinks ( _hopes_ ) that maybe Blaine is trying not to say anything either.

Kurt presses a kiss to Blaine’s temple, the carefully styled curls brushing softly against his cheek, and opens the doors to the Condé Nast building.  It’s the weekend and the doors are locked against the curious and lost tourists swarming through Times Square.  It’s a sea of monochromatic pea coats and umbrellas, protection against the drizzly November weather rolling through the city.  It’s not snowing, not yet, but there’s a chill in the air that never quite warms throughout the day.  The sun shines, but the heat of it is becoming a memory only to be returned to in the spring.

Kurt welcomes it though.  Winter is just around the corner and it’s always been his favorite season.  He loves how the whole world seems to shudder to a halt when the first snow falls, with the high scent of wood-smoke in the air - dulled under the haze of the city, but still present.  He loves the twinkling lights that people hang in their windows and along their eaves, and the crisp breeze that somehow manages to sneak under his layers and chill his skin.  Being cold means he gets to get warm again; gets to wrap his hands around a steaming mug of hot chocolate and snuggle under a thick blanket.  Winter is when he gets to wear socks inside because the floorboards are too cold under his feet.

And now he loves the cooler weather because it means Blaine is in a fitted pea coat more often than not, nipped in at the waist and accentuating the length of his torso.  He’s taken to wearing Kurt’s scarves, too which makes Kurt’s stomach swoop and clench whenever he sees the brightly colored lengths of fabric wrapped around Blaine’s throat.  And winter is going to mean snowflakes melting in Blaine’s dark curls and catching in his long eyelashes when they go for a walk through Central Park.  Kurt can’t wait.  Maybe they’ll stay too long in the park, shuffling through the snow, taking silly photos, mindless of the cold until it’s finally too much and their fingers and noses are numb and their cheeks are pinked.  They’ll go back to Blaine’s apartment, or Kurt’s, laughing and shivering as they pull their snow-wet clothes from each other and get warm again under the blankets piled on Blaine’s bed.

“Yes,” Kurt says as they walk through the grand entrance towards the bank of elevators.  “It’s ok.  I promise.  We’re allowed to be here.  I double-triple checked with Carrie.  She’s all sorts of excited to finally meet you, by the way.  So no pressure there.  Just my boss, the linchpin of my future and my burgeoning career.”  Kurt winks, he can’t help it.  It’s just too easy to get Blaine flustered and worked up, and by the pink tinge in his cheeks, he’s already there.  Kurt ducks in and presses a quick kiss to Blaine’s warm cheek.

“And honestly, besides Anna Wintour herself coming down and slapping the clothes from my hands, there’s no one higher up on the food-chain to tell me no.  I work here.  I have explicit permission from the Fashion Editor.  I have my keycard and ID badge.  It’s not like we’re breaking and entering, and then stealing from designers.  We’re merely swinging by the office after-hours and  _borrowing_.  I wouldn’t willingly lead you into a life of crime and shenanigans.  Wait, no.  I can’t promise that.”

That gets a laugh from Blaine, which was exactly the point, and Kurt is grateful for the slide of Blaine’s fingers through his as they enter one of the elevators and head up to the top.

***

Kurt is enjoying himself far too much.  He works with clothes day in and day out; he’s got drafts and proofs, sketches and deadlines, and all manner of things he’s responsible for these days, and he loves it.  It’s what he wants to do; it’s what he’s always wanted.  He respects the craft and the job, and he’s eternally grateful that it came to him.  Some of the best things in his life would be different if that Friday afternoon on the Brooklyn Bridge hadn’t gone the way it did.  As much as he loves it, it’s still work, and he’s got a steep learning curve to overcome.  It’s only been a few months, after all, and there are some ruthless, ambitious people at Vogue nipping at his heels to try and take his job from him.  He’s good at it, and he’s only going to get better, but sometimes it’s so stressful, so overwhelming, that he can’t breathe.

But not right now.  Right now Kurt has Blaine stripped down to his black boxer-briefs in the Vogue men’s closet and free reign to do whatever he wants with him.  Well, maybe not  _whatever_.  Kurt lets his eyes roam over Blaine’s increasingly familiar body - his broad shoulders and the dusting of dark hair across his chest; the length of his toned torso and the cut of his hips.  Kurt would linger on the curves of Blaine’s biceps, the muscles in his thighs, and the swell of his ass under those shorts, but they have a gala to get to, and there are some things he probably would get fired for doing at work.

He lets himself touch though, as he slides an array of shirts and pants and jackets and ties on and off Blaine, trying this, rejecting that.  There’s no way he isn’t going to let his fingertips follow down the sinuous length of Blaine’s spine, or dance along his ribs, or smooth across his tight belly.  He’s allowed to, and the dark heat in Blaine’s eyes as he watches, silent save for the hitching in his breath whenever Kurt finds a particularly sensitive spot, lets Kurt know that Blaine wants him to do just that. 

Blaine always seems so sweetly shocked that Kurt wants to touch him, that sometimes he can’t take his hands off of him.  His eyes go so dark and his mouth falls open a little.  Kurt doesn’t quite know where it comes from, Blaine’s belief that Kurt, that no one, could possibly want him.  But Blaine is so beautiful, so lovely that it hurts to look at him sometimes, especially in the morning when the sunlight filters through the curtains and casts shadows along the line of his cheekbone and the curve of his jaw.  Kurt, who knows the names of a thousand different shades of fabric, can’t quite put an appropriate adjective on the warm tone of Blaine’s skin.  Kurt wants to spend every minute possible trying to show him just how mistaken he is.

Kurt knows Blaine will be the most at ease tonight in something simple and understated, something that won’t make him stand out in the crowd, but he can’t resist pulling a few pieces with a bit more flash, a bit more style.  Just to see; he’s a little selfish like that.  So often Blaine is in his Starbucks dress code, or in comfortable jeans and cardigans, and Kurt’s been dying to dress him up in something fitted, something beautiful - something worthy of Blaine himself.

Kurt gets him into a khaki suit with a bright bow tie and piped pocket square.  The pants are cuffed and expose just a hint of Blaine’s exceptionally lovely ankles.  It’s a fantastic suit, and Blaine looks great in it, but it’s probably a little much for Blaine’s first Vogue party, and it goes back into the rack.  Then he finds a midnight blue Prada tuxedo with a blue and pink checked shirt.  Kurt, apparently, loves the way Blaine looks in a bow tie, although maybe he loves tying it for him more than anything, giggling and biting his lip as Blaine just stares at him with those soul-deep eyes.  He doesn’t tell Blaine the tux costs more than $3,000.

In the end, Kurt chooses a classic black tuxedo, a timelessly sophisticated Ralph Lauren piece that makes Blaine look remarkably dashing – suave and debonair.  The tux is cut slim, skimming the lines of Blaine’s body, accentuating rather than disguising, and it doesn’t require any hemming or adjusting at all.  The shirt is white and crisp, with a semispread-collar and French cuffs, and the pocket square matches.  Blaine is handsome already, but now he looks like a goddamn movie star.

“Anderson,” Kurt whispers into Blaine’s ear, when he’s got him standing in front of a full-length mirror.  “Blaine Anderson.”  He smoothes his hands down Blaine’s arms; the expensive fabric is cool under his palms, not yet warmed by Blaine’s body.

Blaine flushes and drops his eyes to the floor, clearly embarrassed, but Kurt can tell it’s a pleased kind of discomfiture.  He’d caught the look in Blaine’s eyes – surprised, and pleasantly so – when he first saw himself in the mirror.  Kurt just wraps his arms around Blaine’s trim waist and presses a kiss to his cheek.  The skin is smooth under his lips (Blaine shaved that morning), but by the end of the evening his jaw will be darkened with stubble.

“I think we’re almost ready,” Kurt says, hooking his chin over Blaine’s shoulder.  His own outfit is hanging in his office, ready to be changed into.  Blaine nods and finally looks up, meeting Kurt’s gaze in the mirror.

Looking in the mirror, with their hands folded together across Blaine’s stomach, Kurt tries not to think about another occasion where Blaine might wear a tux just like this one.

***

Blaine doesn’t know who three-quarters of the people packed into the beautiful New York Public Library’s Stephen A. Schwarzman Building are.  He recognizes the celebrities and pseudo-celebrities who’ve shown up to make an appearance – the ones who are looking to be photographed and written about in news articles and blogs.  But the rest?  He knows the names of designers, a few of them at least, but he doesn’t think he could pick Karl Lagerfeld out of a lineup.  He’s learning, though.  He listens with careful attention whenever Kurt goes on about his job and the upcoming collections and who’s in-fighting with whom.  It never used to interest him, fashion or design, but anything important to Kurt is becoming important to him.

He’s not on anyone’s radar that night, and that suits him just fine.  Most of the people here, their eyes just pass right over him - the short guy in the borrowed tux - and he’s happy to stay out of their way.  He’s not part of their crowd; he’s not anybody to them at all.

 _Not yet, but maybe…one day_.  Blaine thinks. _If I’m lucky._

Maybe one day, a show of his will find its way to Broadway and a party, just like this one, will be thrown in his honor.  He’ll show up wearing a suit of Kurt’s design and Kurt will help him remember who everyone is, his arm looped through Blaine’s, fingers rubbing gently at his wrist when he starts to get nervous and overwhelmed.  His brother will probably leap in to take the attention off him if it gets to be too much.

Blaine is sitting at his assigned table, sipping overpriced champagne from a flute, and watching the ebb and flow of people.  He can tell by the fake smiles and the way no one stands very close together, bodies angled away, that most of these people don’t really like each other at all.  He can tell it’s all a big show, and one they’re engaging in reluctantly.  Kurt is somewhere in that well-dressed, well-to-do crowd: schmoozing, making contacts, getting his name out there, doing his  _job_.  There are powerful people here tonight, important people, and every moment Kurt can spend with them is vital to his career and his future; this is really just a party in name only.  Blaine doesn’t begrudge him a minute of it, even if it means he’s been sitting at their table alone for a little while.

He already made a circuit through the dimly lit, yet festive ballroom.  The room is aglow in reds and purples - rich drapery hanging from the ceiling and walls and lights set up everywhere.  He stuck close to Kurt’s side, shaking hands with people who will never remember his name, charming them as best he could for Kurt’s sake.  But he’s just a plus-one, and the only interest in him was the fact that he’s Carrie Bradshaw’s new assistant’s date - that put him just a step or two above a few people.  Even so, Blaine’s heart thrummed every time Kurt referred to him as his  _date_  - no hesitation, no fear, just the simple, easy fact of their relationship. 

 _Our relationship_.  The thought twists in Blaine’s belly and makes him smile against the rim of his champagne flute.

A waiter slides up next to him, silent and unassuming, and switches out his mostly-empty glass before he can say anything.  She is deferential towards him, because even though Blaine is a nobody at this party, he’s still a guest.  He’s still her superior for the night, as much as he hates the very thought of it.

Blaine’s careful to thank the wait staff as often and as sincerely as he can.  He knows what it’s like to be the lowest man on the totem pole; he’s in the service industry too.  He knows what it’s like to have someone yell at  _him_  because they’re having a shitty day.  Day in and day out people treat him as if he’s worth less than nothing, like he’s beneath the gum stuck to their shoes just because he makes their coffee.  He can’t do that to someone else.

“Excuse me, sir,” comes a voice from behind him.

Blaine startles and twists in his seat to find Kurt standing there, a sweet smile curving his mouth, hand extending out towards him in invitation.  His cheeks are a little flushed with heat or alcohol, or both, and his hair is starting to break free of its careful styling.  The knot of his tie has come loose at his throat, the top few buttons of his shirt are undone, and his jacket is fully open.  He’s a shade shy of disheveled and so devastatingly gorgeous that Blaine’s breath catches.  He doesn’t think he’ll ever get over  _Kurt_.

“Would you care to dance with me?”  Kurt asks, and his eyes are a deep blue in the glowing haze of purple and red lights.

Blaine glances around.  There’s been music playing all evening, a strange variety of jazz standards and current pop, but only now, as the party winds down, are people actually dancing.  The business is done, the drinks have been had, and there’s time left for a little enjoyment.

“Yes,” Blaine says.  “Yes, of course.”  As if there’s any other option, any other answer.  He lets Kurt take his hand, pull him from his chair, and lead him out into the crowd.

Blaine doesn’t think he’s ever danced in public before, not like this.  He’s been to bars and clubs with his friends, but that was different.  And he never went to a school dance.  But this, this isn’t shimmying to a techno beat with a couple of buddies when he’s had enough to drink to step out of his comfort zone a little.  This is closeness and heat and the press of Kurt’s body against him, the twining of Kurt’s fingers through his own, the strength of the arm around his shoulders.  He fits so easily into Kurt’s arms.

Blaine leans his forehead against Kurt’s jaw and breathes in deep, smelling the traces of Kurt’s cologne still lingering on his skin.  He wants to press a kiss to the soft skin, but doesn’t.  This isn’t the place for that.

“Carrie likes you,” Kurt murmurs into his ear, just loud enough to be heard over the music, as they sway together to their own rhythm.  Some distantly familiar song is playing and the heavy bass of it pulses through Blaine’s body.  “She wouldn’t stop talking about you actually.” He pulls their clasped hands between their bodies, resting them against his chest.  Blaine can feel Kurt’s heart beating.

“I didn’t mean to pull focus from you.”

Kurt huffs a laugh and Blaine feels it in his very bones.  “Thanks for coming with me.  It wouldn’t have been the same without you.”  There’s something in Kurt’s voice, low and pulling, that sounds almost like a confession.

Blaine rests his cheek against Kurt’s shoulder and closes his eyes.

“As if I would have been anywhere else.”


	8. Breve

Kurt lets himself into Blaine’s apartment, thrilling a little at the soft  _snick_  of the lock giving way to the key in his fingers.  He hasn’t had it very long, and the extra weight of it on his keychain, nestled against his own key, still makes him giddy.  Sometimes he catches himself playing with it, rubbing his thumb back and forth along the sharp teeth.

He remembers the evening Blaine gave it to him, just a few weeks ago, all shy eyes and nervous fingers.  Kurt had made his way to Blaine’s after work, only to find Blaine not at home.  He’d double-checked Blaine’s work and class schedule on his phone, just to be sure he hadn’t screwed up and it was actually one of those rare nights that Blaine had a late seminar or shift.  But it wasn’t.  Blaine should have been home, not that Kurt was worried about his safety or anything. 

“You’re not home,” Kurt said when Blaine answered the phone.  “Are you?”

“No…” Blaine’s voice was confused, and Kurt could just picture his furrowed brow as the wheels turned.  “Oh god you’re there, aren’t you?  I’m so sorry.  Shit, Kurt.”

Kurt could hear the rustling of papers and fabric and he was fairly certain Blaine was shoving notes and books into his bag and throwing his jacket on.

“It’s fine, really.” Kurt had turned from the front door of Blaine’s building and looked down the snow-covered sidewalk. A few early Christmas decorations glowed merrily in the distance, heralding the upcoming holiday.  The steadily falling snow had already ruined the neighborhood’s efforts to shovel it out of the way.  It would take him a good half hour, probably more if he was perfectly honest, to walk home in his heavy boots, avoiding the icy patches along the way.  But it would probably take longer to wait for a bus that might not even come.  “I can just head home and-” 

“No!  Don’t.” The forcefulness of Blaine’s voice, the pleading tone, rocked Kurt back.  He heard the distant echo of a door clanging shut over the phone.  “I mean.  Can you - will you wait?  For me?  I’m on the way.  I’ll be, fuck, I don’t know.  Twenty minutes?  I’m just at the school.  Fuck, I should have sent you a text, I just lost track of the time and-” 

“Blaine, stop,” Kurt cut Blaine off.  “It’s fine, really.  And of course I’ll wait.”  Kurt had started walking in the direction of one of the cafes they often had brunch at on the weekends when Blaine wasn’t working the early shift.  Blaine liked to fill in the crossword puzzle while he savored his coffee (Kurt had quickly memorized just how much cream Blaine took and how much cinnamon he liked sprinkled across the top), and Kurt just enjoyed watching Blaine chew on the end of his pen, forehead scrunched adorably in concentration.  Kurt helped with the clues he could - he knew more about geography, but Blaine was a master of history - but mostly he just stole the leftover bites of Blaine’s toast and sipped from his cup.  The taste of coffee and spice was so familiar from Blaine’s lips.

“And you never know, maybe I’ll meet some charming, ridiculously handsome waiter at that place we like and-”

“Kurt,” there was a playful warning in Blaine’s voice, just a shade shy of a low growl, and it sent a shiver through Kurt that had nothing at all to do with the cold. 

“Hurry home, dear, just don’t slip and fall and break your talent, ok?”

Kurt remembers how adorably mussed Blaine had been when he’d finally made it home, cheeks bright red and lips almost blue from the cold.  His hair was wet from the snow, because he hadn’t remembered to bring a hat, and dripping icy water down his neck and under his collar.  He’d mumbled another apology against Kurt’s lips when they’d gotten inside the door before dashing off to his bedroom, shedding his sodden jacket and boots along the way. 

He’d come back a moment later, with something clutched tightly in his fist. 

“I don’t,” Blaine had started, then paused, and took a deep breath.  Kurt could see him trembling and he seemed to be looking for the right words, or any words at all.  “I don’t know what the rules are for this kind of thing, the guidelines.  I - this is new for me.  This whole thing.  I know it’s only been a few months, which isn’t really that long at all, but I feel - I don’t care how long it’s been.  You should have this, I want you to have this.”

Blaine had stuck his hand out, and resting there on his palm was a shiny key.  “Kurt.”

Kurt’s heart had skipped a beat.  Blaine said his name a hundred different ways, with a thousand different inflections, but he always held it on his tongue a heartbeat too long, as though he couldn’t bear to let it go.

Kurt remembers how his mouth went dry and his blood seemed to roar in his ears, the whole world narrowing to the shiny silver key in Blaine’s hand and the look in his eyes.  In that moment, Blaine’s eyes were a deep hazel and huge on his face, so nervous, and yet heartbreakingly hopeful.  Kurt had been the one to ask for his name, his number.  Kurt had been the one to muster up his courage and ask Blaine out on their first date, so unsure of what Blaine would say but unable to let the chance pass him by.  But there Blaine was, standing in his living room and still dripping water all over his floor, offering him that with an open heart, offering him almost everything.

Kurt had rested his hand over Blaine’s, pressing the key between their palms, warming it despite Blaine’s still-cold fingers. Blaine’s smile had been tremulous, fragile.  He’d surged into Blaine’s arms then, clutching the key tightly and finding Blaine’s mouth, so much warmer than the rest of him.  He tasted stale espresso and a thousand new mornings.  Kurt almost didn’t need the spluttering of the radiator coming to life, not with the way Blaine’s hands were finally heated as they pushed under his layers and found his skin.

Kurt smiles at the memory, still fresh and infinitely precious to him, as he closes the door behind him. 

Blaine doesn’t really live very far from him, not as far as he could, but Kurt tries not to think about what might have happened to his life if Blaine lived in the Bronx, or further.  He tries not to think about Blaine working at a different Starbucks and the two of them never meeting.  Kurt believes in things like hard work and perseverance, but when he wakes in the morning, snuggled under the thick blankets of Blaine’s bed with Blaine’s head resting on the pillow next to his, Kurt believes in fate too.

Kurt finds that he’s spending more and more of his evenings curled up in the corner of Blaine’s couch, or seated on the surprisingly comfortable rug in front of it with Blaine stretched out behind him, scratching away at sheet music or doing his assigned reading.  It’s secure and homey and so fucking domestic that Kurt’s heart feels about three and a half sizes too big for his chest.  It almost hurts, the way Kurt knows that if he tips his head back against the cushion Blaine will drop a quick kiss on his forehead, brush his hair back, run his fingers along the shell of Kurt’s ear, and smile down at him with that achingly fond grin that brings dimples to his cheeks. 

His own place is where all of his stuff is - his clothes, his books, most of the work he tends to bring with him because he’s still trying to keep two steps ahead of anything.  Fairly new and unexpected relationship or no, he’s not going to fall behind, or even give the appearance that something else has taken so much of his attention these days, even if it has.  Even if some mornings he wants nothing more than to throw Blaine’s phone at the wall and wrap him back up in his arms, keeping him all to himself for a day.  The tourists and caffeine-deprived businesspeople of Times Square can go without their beloved barista for a day. 

Besides, it’s just so easy to hop onto the N train instead of the 1 and make his way down the tree-lined streets of Blaine’s surprisingly quaint little neighborhood to his front door.  And Blaine seems to relish his increased presence, if the delight in his eyes every time the front door opens and the new stash of chocolate in the snack cupboard is anything to go by.

Kurt drops his bag onto the chair next to the door, on top of Blaine’s, and toes his wet boots off, hanging them on the drying rack he brought from his own place.

He’s about to call out to Blaine when he hears his voice, low and stressed, from the living room.

Blaine is pacing frantically around the small space, one hand holding the phone up to his ear while his other arm is wrapped tightly around his middle, fingers clutching deep into his sweater.  His hair is a riotous mess, as though he’d been running his hands through it constantly.  He looks nervous, almost scared.  Kurt’s heart leaps into his throat.

 _Something happened_.  

“It sounds, it sounds wonderful, sir,” Blaine says and he stops pacing, and stares at a framed photo of him and his brother as kids that hangs on the wall.  Kurt takes a step forward and the creak of the floor catches Blaine’s attention.

“I – yes, sir.”  Blaine’s eyes find his from across the room, wide and panicked.  Kurt cocks his head inquiringly but Blaine just swallows.  “Burt.  Yes, Burt.  I would be honored to be there.”

 _He’s talking to my dad_ , Kurt thinks, and a shiver works its way through him.   _My dad, he must have…oh god._

Blaine hangs up and drops the phone onto the couch.  “Kurt.”  His voice is rough and thick, as though he’s holding back tears. 

“That was my dad.”

Blaine nods, and Kurt can see his throat working.  “Yeah.  He, uh, he,” Blaine folds his arms around his chest and makes himself small in the way he does when he’s particularly uncomfortable.  “He invited me over for Christmas.”

Kurt’s stomach flips, swoops, and leaps into his throat.  Blaine.  In his father’s home.  For Christmas. With _him_.  Kurt takes a step towards Blaine, who is pale and trembling just a little.

“And you said yes.”  He can’t keep the wonder and anticipation out of his voice.   _Christmas with Blaine_.

A tentative smile twitches at the corner of Blaine’s mouth, but his shoulders are still set tense, his body is still curved in protectively.  “I said yes,” he says with a slight, self-conscious shrug.  “I – I hope that’s ok.  We haven’t really discussed…holidays.”

Kurt swallows against the sudden rush of awkwardness.  He spent Thanksgiving alone in his little studio with a carton of take out and the Twilight Zone marathon on TV.  It was one of their first and only communication mishaps, with Blaine assuming that Kurt had family plans.  He didn’t.

Blaine spent it with his brother, who somehow just happened to be in town for the holiday.  Cooper said he was there for ‘a business meeting, nothing big,’ but Blaine knew Cooper flew in just for him.  He’s done the same thing everything Thanksgiving and Christmas since Blaine moved to New York.  Blaine had called at the end of the night, when a traditional Thanksgiving meal would have been over, only to discover that there hadn’t been a meal at all, that Kurt hadn’t gone home for Thanksgiving, even if he wanted to.  He didn’t have all the money in the world either. 

“It’s more than ok,” Kurt breathes.  His blood is singing through his veins just at the thought of it, at the thought of eggnog and a crackling fire and Christmas carols.

His dad has been yelling at him to bring Blaine over to the house for weeks, since Thanksgiving when Kurt called him and mentioned that he didn’t know what Blaine was doing for the holidays, that no, Blaine wasn’t with him then.  Burt gives the invite as if he were just down the block and not a plane ticket away.  Kurt’s been meaning to bring Christmas up to Blaine, to ask him, but he hasn’t found the right time or opportunity. Or maybe the courage.

Christmas is important to Kurt.  For as long as he can remember, it’s been just the two of them – him and his dad.  They have their traditions: the decorations for the tree; the cinnamon waffles for brunch; the stockings that Kurt made when he was ten and just really learning how to cut fabric and sew.  Those things are sacred and precious to him, and for the longest time Kurt couldn’t imagine anyone else ever intruding upon them.

But now Kurt thinks about Blaine becoming a part of that, becoming a piece of their traditions, becoming a member of their family.  There’s a tableau forming in his mind, of him and his father, and Blaine, and a Christmas tree aglow with twinkling lights while snow, soft and wonderful, falls outside.

Kurt smiles, and he feels safe and warm right down to his soul.  He crosses the room and pulls Blaine into a hug, sliding his arms around those tense shoulders.  He feels the relieved huff of Blaine’s breath against his neck as Blaine’s arms circle his waist, strong and sure.

“Of course it’s ok,” Kurt presses his nose to Blaine’s temple, inhales the sweet scent of his hair.  “It’s more than ok.” 

“Oh, good.”  Blaine tightens his hold on Kurt.  “It’s – it’s big, you know?  It’s important.”

The first date, the key, meeting the parents – they’re all steps towards an eventuality.  It doesn’t scare Kurt, but it takes his breath away.

“Is it, I mean, can you, er,” Kurt doesn’t know how to ask how Blaine can afford the airfare.  Kurt’s dad is paying for his flight.  It’s his Christmas gift, the same one he’s gotten the past four years, even though Kurt is beginning to have extra money for just these sorts of things.  His job is tough and exhausting, but at least it pays well.

Kurt can feel Blaine’s smile against his neck.  “Yeah, I can.  It’s - my brother, he lets me use his frequent flyer miles.  He has more than enough of them.”  Kurt doesn’t need Blaine to say that his brother doesn’t “let” him so much as “forces” him.  Kurt doesn’t think he’ll ever truly understand the complicated relationship between Blaine and his brother.  He thinks he might have plenty of time to try figuring it out though. 

“So you’re coming over for Christmas, meeting my dad.”  The thoughts is astounding.

“I am.”

Kurt slides a hand up Blaine’s back and tangles his fingers in Blaine’s hair.  He can feel the thump of Blaine’s heart – just a touch too fast – against his own chest.  He’s ready for this.

 _I love you_ , he thinks, but doesn’t say.


	9. Undertow

There’s a car waiting for them at the airport in Ohio - a big, black, shiny Escalade that looks utterly incongruous with the man leaning against it.  He’s thick-built, though not out of shape, and he’s wearing baggy jeans with snow boots, and a big, heavy winter jacket that looks like it’s seen a couple of storms.  It’s snowing and the slight breeze blowing is icy cold and he’s dressed for it.  He’s got a worn Buckeyes cap on his head that he adjusts with a practiced flick of his hand when Kurt and Blaine step out of the airport and into the winter cold.

_Mr. Hummel,_  Blaine thinks.   _This is Kurt’s father_.  The panic he’d been holding at bay all throughout the flight surges in him and his shoulders snap back, his posture straightens.  He’s so tense it hurts.  Kurt’s fingers find his and squeeze comfortingly.

_It’s going to be ok,_  passes unspoken between them.  Blaine wants to relax, to let the touch of Kurt’s fingers, the warmth of him at his side, soothe him, but he can’t unlock his muscles.  He met Howard Schultz once, during a planned surprise visit to his store; this is worse.  This is so much worse.

“Hey, kid,” Mr. Hummel says, and his voice is deeper and gruffer than Kurt’s ever is, but the smile that lights up his face is achingly familiar to Blaine.  “Good to see you.”

“Dad.”  Kurt’s fingers slide from Blaine’s as he rushes to his father and gets enveloped in a massive hug.  Blaine watches them with an ache in his chest.  His brother hugs him every time they’re together, but it’s not quite the same.  Cooper isn’t his father, no matter how hard he tries to be.  He’s the best Blaine’s got though. 

“Dad,” Kurt says as he draws back from his father.  “I want you to meet someone.”  His eyes find Blaine, sea-blue in the grey of winter and so incredibly happy it makes Blaine’s throat tighten against some unnamable emotion.

_This is it_ , Blaine thinks, and he resists the almost overwhelming urge to run his hands through his hair and straighten out his clothes.  He’d gotten dressed with care that morning before their flight - pressed jeans (an iron had somehow shown up in his closet one morning, and Kurt’s denied any involvement with it ever since), a white button-down shirt, and a blue sweater over it.  He’d found a grey blazer that sat well on his shoulders and pulled that on too, even though he knew he’d get too warm in so many layers, but he wanted to make a good first impression.  He needed to.  Blaine had wanted to put a tie on, but Kurt had shaken his head, lips quirking with amusement, and told him that they just weren’t that formal.

“Maybe for Christmas dinner,” he’d murmured as he took the tie from Blaine’s fingers and tossed it aside. “But probably not even then.”  The kisses he’d pressed to Blaine’s cheek, and then his mouth, were sweet and lingering.

“This is Blaine Anderson,” Kurt says, and the note of pride in his voice makes Blaine’s palms sweat and his heart thump even louder than it already is.

“So,” Mr. Hummel looks Blaine up and down, and Blaine shivers under the scrutiny.  His shoulders square even tighter under the gaze; he knows he’s going to be found wanting.  He’s never going to be good enough for Kurt’s father.  His knees feel weak and shaky and he wipes his hands on the edge of his jacket as discretely as possible. “This is the boyfriend, huh?”

“Yes, dad.  This is my boyfriend.”  Kurt’s voice is fond and adoring, and the sound of it, the very words  _my boyfriend_  spilling from his lips, eases some of the tension coiling tight and painful through Blaine.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, sir,” Blaine says, mustering up his courage and stepping forward with his hand extended.  He pales when Mr. Hummel shakes his head.  There’s a little grin on his face that Blaine recognizes from Kurt.  It’s the one that says, “you’re kind of ridiculous, aren’t you?”  Blaine knows what it means coming from Kurt; he’s afraid of what it says coming from Kurt’s father.

“None of that nonsense - come here, son.”  And then Mr. Hummel’s arms are around him, solid and impossibly, improbably reassuring.  Blaine freezes.  People don’t touch him, not really.  When you hide from people long enough, they learn to leave you alone.  His brother, and now Kurt, are really the only ones who freely offer touch, who demand it in return.  But Blaine’s nose is pressed to Mr. Hummel’s shoulder and he smells motor oil and grease, and under that, the sharp tang of glycerin and witch hazel.

_He makes his own aftershave_ , Blaine thinks, a little stupidly.  But Mr. Hummel is clapping his back with his huge, strong hands and squeezing him tight, and Blaine can’t remember the last time his own father hugged him, if he ever did.

“I already told you,” Mr. Hummel says, drawing back, but he leaves one hand on Blaine’s shoulder.  The weight of it is grounding.  “Call me Burt.”  His eyes are a hazel green, the color nothing like Kurt’s, but the kindness, the openness is there.  Blaine figures it must be a Hummel trait.

Blaine swallows and doesn’t wipe his sweating palms on his thighs like he wants to.  “Yes, Burt.”

“All right then.”  Burt finally lets go of Blaine and fishes his keys out of his pocket.  “Let’s get out of this damn weather and back home where it’s nice and toasty.  I’m sure you boys must be hungry.  There’s more than enough in the fridge, if you can get to it past that giant turkey.”  Burt takes Blaine’s little carry-on suitcase and puts it into the back of the Escalade before Blaine can protest.

“He likes you,” Kurt whispers, sweet and joyful in his ear.  “I told you he would.”  Kurt presses a warm, lingering kiss to his cheek and rubs his back a little before getting into the car.

_I’ve met the parent_ , Blaine thinks, suddenly giddy with it.  It’s just one more milestone he’s achieved with Kurt, because of Kurt, that he never thought he would.

***

Blaine spends the drive to the Hummel residence in relative silence, listening to the chatter and banter of the father and son in the front seats as the snow-covered countryside slides past the windows.  Burt is genial and affable, easy to like; he asks questions as if he cares and listens to the answers because he does.  It’s so very clear that Kurt talks to his father often, and that he tells his father everything.  Burt knows about Kurt’s job - his coworkers, his deadlines, his projects.  He’s heard all the little incidents and anecdotes from Kurt’s day - interesting people he passed on the Subway, the tourist who asked him how to get to Times Square while standing on 42nd and Broadway.  And he knows about Blaine.  He knows how they met, and that Kurt asked him out first.  He knows about the gala that Kurt took Blaine to, how they danced at the end.  Blaine just hopes that Burt doesn’t know what they did afterwards.

Burt includes Blaine in the conversation, even though he’s in the backseat, throwing questions and comments back over his shoulder.

“So, Blaine.  Kurt’s told me about your job and all the crazy customers you have to put up with.  And you’re in grad school, right?  That’s really something to be proud of.”

“Yes, sir - Burt.  It’s the graduate musical theatre writing program at Tisch.”  Blaine can’t hide the pride in his voice when he says it.  Sometimes he still can’t believe that he was accepted to the program, and that he’s doing as well as he is.  He knows he has some measure of talent musical theatre, he wouldn’t have gotten into the program if he didn’t, and he wouldn’t have won that contest in high school either.  But it’s another thing to hear it straight from his professors, from the very people he looks up to and admires.  He holds every glowing remark about his assignments, and every word of praise deep inside of him, where they warm him when the worry and the fear start to creep in.

Blaine tells Burt insane Starbucks customer interaction stories, choosing the ones he thinks someone like Burt will appreciate the most.  He tells Burt about the bicyclist who pulled a sweaty, crumpled twenty-dollar bill from his biking shorts and tried to pay for his iced Americano with it.  He’d gotten the drink on the house.  Blaine recounts the story of the businesswoman who came in, tottering on heels too high for her, phone in one hand, bag in the other, and asked Blaine to stir the granola into her yogurt for her.  Burt’s loud, barking laughter, echoing through the car, settles Blaine’s nervous stomach and eases some of the tension in his bones.

Burt’s house is down a cute, tree-lined street.  It’s not the busiest road, but it’s been recently plowed, and Burt pulls into his driveway with ease.  There’s a big green wreath with a red and gold bow hanging on the front door.  The panic that had subsided during the drive rises up in Blaine again, but Kurt takes his hand and squeezes encouragingly. 

It’s warm inside, and cozy.  The house isn’t huge, but it’s comfortable for a father and son.  The furniture is mostly mismatched, and clearly well loved.  But it’s comfortable. It’s very obviously a home, not just a house.  There are pictures all over the walls and on the mantle over the fireplace of Kurt - as a kid, a teenager, and more recent ones.  Blaine lingers on a photo of Kurt at his high school graduation, surrounded by friends, and smiling so brightly that Blaine can’t help but smile at it in return.  He wonders what it would have been like to know Kurt in school.

The house is decorated for Christmas.  There’s a big beautiful tree, a Fraser Fir, in the living room, done up in tinsel and lights and all sorts of decorations that shine and glimmer.  Evergreen boughs set off with big red bows travel up the length of the staircase banister and drape along the fireplace mantle, just above two stockings that hang, empty and waiting to be filled.  They’re slightly off-center, as though they’ve been shoved aside, making room for another.  It smells of forest and sap, of winter nights curled in front of a fire with marshmallow-filled hot chocolate.  It smells of Christmas and of family.  Blaine closes his eyes and takes a deep breath.

“You ok?” Kurt asks, quiet and cautious next to him, and Blaine realizes he’s standing still in the middle of Mr. Hummel’s living room.

“Yeah,” Blaine smiles at him.  “I really am.”  He leans in and presses a soft kiss to Kurt’s mouth, smiling wider at Kurt’s surprised, pleased little noise.

“Why don’t you show Blaine to your old room, Kurt?” Burt’s voice breaks through.  He sounds amused, but Blaine flushes to the tips of his ears.  Five minutes in Mr. Hummel’s home and he’s managed to get caught doing what no one wants to get caught at.  He really is an idiot, and Burt’s going to realize it any moment. “Get your stuff put away and I’ll rustle us up something to eat.” 

“My room?” Kurt asks, cocking his head in confusion a little.

“Well yeah.  He’s not going to sleep on the sofa, is he?”

“No, I just, I just thought,” Kurt trails off with a little hand gesture, and Blaine looks on in amazement as a blush stains his cheeks a lovely shade of pink.  “There’s the guest room.” 

Burt just shrugs and resettles his worn cap on his head.  He’s taken his heavy jacket off and underneath he’s wearing a flannel shirt.  “You’re adults, you know?  I’m your father, and this is my house, and I’m saying it’s fine.  You probably don’t want to argue this with me, do you?”

Blaine feels too hot and as though his clothes are too tight.  There is no way this conversation is going on around him, under Kurt’s father’s roof, no less. 

“Thanks, dad.”  Kurt takes his hand again, and strokes a thumb across his knuckles.  “We’ll be two minutes.” He draws Blaine towards the staircase that leads up to his old bedroom.  Blaine follows, because he can’t do anything else.

“Good,” Burt calls after them.  “Because I’m hungry, and I’ve saved some decorations for you boys to put on that tree.”

***

There’s a coffee maker on the kitchen counter, just a basic 12-cup pot, but Blaine thinks, given a little creativity, he can brew Burt the best cup of coffee he’s had in a while.  Burt doesn’t strike him as a man who craves the simple beauty of a macchiato, or the practiced complexity of a perfect cappuccino.  But Blaine can picture Burt with a mug of fresh-brewed coffee and the morning paper, maybe with a little milk, no sugar.  Blaine makes a note to wake up early the next morning and do just that.  He can probably get some breakfast going too - he knows how to bake bread and scramble eggs.  Almost everyone likes those things.  He tries not to think about the fact that he’ll be waking up in Kurt’s old bed, safe under Kurt’s soft sheets and thick blankets, with Kurt pressed warm and close to him.  And that it will be Christmas Eve.

Burt’s made them sandwiches - thick-cut chicken with avocado and gruyere cheese he’s toasted on a panini maker that Kurt surely must have given to him as a gift.  Blaine’s desperate to help - to set the table, to pour drinks - anything to feel less like he’s freeloading and coasting on Burt’s infinite kindness.  But Burt just sits him down in a chair around the kitchen table, next to Kurt, and sets a plate down in front of him.

“Eat up, kid.”  He claps Blaine on the shoulder before taking a seat on the other side.

“This is really great, Mr. Hummel. Burt,” Blaine corrects himself at Burt’s raised eyebrow.

“It’s just been me and Kurt for a long time.  You learn to cook fast.”

Blaine nods in understanding.  Before Cooper left, he was the one to do most of the cooking.  And after, Blaine remembers frustrated phone calls to the West Coast trying to figure why the meat wasn’t cooking properly or why the dough wasn’t rising.

“So,” Burt begins.  “Where’re you from?  Kurt’s never said.”

“Uhm, Bridgeport, Connecticut, originally.”  Blaine sets the crust of his sandwich down.  He needs to clasp his hands together to hide the slight tremble.  He knows where conversations like this inevitably end up.  “But my mom, she actually moved out here when I - when my parents separated.  She moved to Westerville - there was an aunt, I think, who lived there.”

“Westerville’s not far from here at all.”

“No, it’s not.” Blaine licks his lips.  His mouth is dry.  “There was a time when - well I almost went with her.  There’s a school in Westerville.  They have a reputation for academic excellence, and they offer boarding, so I wouldn’t have been a bigger burden to my mom and her aunt, but-” Blaine swallows and twists the ring on his middle finger.  For everything he’s told Kurt, there’s so much he hasn’t.  He feels like he can though, now.

“It was expensive, and I couldn’t - my father, he told me to go, if I wanted.  But he wouldn’t finance it - not the school, not the move.  He didn’t, uhm - he didn’t want me around, but he wasn’t going to pay for me to go running off to mom.  And mom couldn’t afford it.  And I - I couldn’t ask my brother.  He - he offered, begged me to let him, but I couldn’t.  So I stayed.”  Blaine can’t look up; he doesn’t want to see the pity in their eyes. He doesn’t think he could take it.

There’s a silent pause where Blaine can feel Kurt and his father staring at him, judging, questioning.  He feels like he wants to vomit.

“So,” Kurt says, and he reaches across the table to take Blaine’s hand.  “We might have known each other before, in a different life.”

Blaine tries not to think about all the ways he might not have ever met Kurt - all the choices, the myriad paths that led him to where he is now.

“She might still be out there, my mom.  I don’t know.  I don’t have her number or anything, and honestly, I don’t care to know.”

_She left_ , he thinks.   _It’s done_.  He didn’t understand  _why_ at first, but he does know.  There’s only so much one soul can take, and not every soul is made of the same stuff.

“Son,” Burt says.  “You got dealt a low hand, didn’t you?”

“I…” Blaine doesn’t know what to say.  There are many doors Blaine has shut and doesn’t intend to open.  “It just is.  The past is a different country, you know?  I moved on.  I left for New York the second I could and I’ve never looked back.  It hasn’t been easy, and it’s still not easy.  It probably never will be, but,” Blaine looks down at his hand, held fast by Kurt’s.  He can say this.

“Mr. Hummel.  Burt.  Your son came into my life when - when I didn’t even know I needed him.  I was just barely hanging on, and I didn’t even realize it.  He’s changed everything for me.  Everything.  And even if - I’ll always - I,” Blaine squeezes his eyes shut and almost groans aloud in frustration.  He’ll never find the words to adequately explain. 

_I will be in love with him forever_ , he thinks, but it’s not the time to say.

Blaine looks up to find Burt staring at him with such intensity that he feels it in his bones.  Burt’s eyes are all-too-knowing, and Blaine thinks he sees understanding. 

“He’s an exceptional man, my Kurt,” Burt says in his deep, gruff voice that manages to convey such love and affection for his son.

“He really, really is,” Blaine looks over at Kurt, whose eyes are so bright in his face it’s hard to meet his gaze. Blaine wants to tell him  _everything_. “I’m so grateful for him.”  It’s all he can say then.

But the way Kurt’s lips twitch before he lifts Blaine’s hand up and brushes a soft kiss across his knuckles makes Blaine wonder if Kurt already knows.


	10. Peppermint Mocha

Blaine rouses slowly.  His toes are cold, and so is his nose, but the rest of him is warm through and through.  Kurt is curled around him, body snug against Blaine’s back with an arm wrapped around his waist.  Blaine smiles, drowsy and content, and rubs his thumb across the bone of Kurt’s wrist.  Blaine doesn’t care how they sleep.  Sometimes he ends up on his back with Kurt draped over him, an arm resting on his chest, one leg thrown across his thigh, and his knee pressed intimately into Blaine’s groin.  Other times he wakes with Kurt’s strong arms wrapped tightly around him and his face buried in Blaine’s neck.  Blaine is new to this – new to sharing space, sharing a bed, sharing breath - but he doesn’t care, he can adapt, as long it’s Kurt he’s doing the sharing with.

Blaine takes a deep, waking breath and smells unfamiliar laundry soap and the intimately familiar heat of Kurt’s skin.  He rubs his cheek against the pillowcase and shivers at the scratch of his stubble against the smooth fabric.

“Your toes are cold,” Kurt murmurs in his ear.  His voice is rough with sleep, deeper than usual, and the sound of it curls happily in Blaine’s belly.  Kurt is so lovely in the morning - he’s lovely always, but especially so when he’s loose and pliant.  Blaine loves to wake him with kisses peppered across his face and gentle fingers at his stomach and hips, and the smooth insides of his thighs.

Blaine stretches a little, tensing and releasing his muscles.  His limbs feel heavy and relaxed, and the sheets are body-warm and soft against his skin.  “Go back to sleep,” he whispers.

He doesn’t really want to get up; he wants to stay cocooned in the blankets with Kurt and enjoy some uninterrupted time together that they don’t normally get.  But he’s thinking of the bread and coffee he promised himself he’d make for Burt.  The clock on the nightstand says it’s only just past 6am.  There’s more than enough time for a decent breakfast before Burt rises.  Burt refused his offer of money for gas and food while Blaine is staying in his home, but no one can say no to a home-cooked meal that’s already made and on the table. 

“Stay,” Kurt says, and his grip on Blaine tightens, keeping him from leaving the bed.  He presses a kiss to the back of Blaine’s head.  “It’s cold outside.”  Blaine can hear the teasing amusement singing in Kurt’s voice.

“Your father will be pacing the floor.”  Blaine shifts, and rubs his cold toes back against Kurt’s calf.

“How can you do this thing to me?”  Kurt’s hand moves from his stomach and slides around his hip. 

Blaine laughs.  He can’t help it.  It’s Christmas Eve, grey morning light is filtering through the curtains, and Blaine can feel Kurt’s heart beating in time with his.  He twists in Kurt’s arms, finds his mouth in a tender kiss, and grins when Kurt makes a pleased, muffled sound against his lips and shifts against him.  He knows they have Burt’s blessing, such as it is, but there are some things Blaine doesn’t think he can do under this roof, especially when Burt is just down the hall.  But that doesn’t mean he can’t revel in this sleepy Monday morning.  It doesn’t mean he can’t enjoy the slick slide of Kurt’s tongue against his and the way Kurt gasps when Blaine presses closer and kisses him deeper.

The words are right there.  Blaine can feel them in his throat and his heart.  In that moment, they’re like espresso - if he pulls them too soon, they’ll be weak and tasteless, but if he holds them on his tongue too long they’ll turn dark and bitter.  Wasted.  The timing has to be right.  He wants to say them though.  Blaine wants to say them in the morning when he leaves for work, when Kurt comes through his line and gets his mocha hours later, when he calls Kurt during his lunch break just to hear the sound of his voice.  He wants to tell him when he comes home from work or class and Kurt is on his couch, watching TV or something, or in his kitchen making them dinner, wearing one of Blaine’s old NYU shirts.  Blaine wants to tell Kurt  _I am in love with you_  until he wears the words out and makes them new again. 

“Don’t shave,” Kurt murmurs when Blaine finally draws back, and he rubs his thumb against Blaine’s stubbled jaw.  The scratch of it sends shivers down Blaine’s neck.

“What?”

Kurt’s eyes finally flutter open, grey-blue in the hazy light, and Blaine’s breath catches in his throat at the look in them.  Affectionate.  Adoring.  And somehow all his.  There are times, just like this one, when Blaine can’t believe it’s come to this, that they’ve come this far so fast.  Sometimes he still feels unworthy of Kurt’s attention, but he’s trying.

“It’s Christmas.  Be casual.  Be relaxed.  There’s no one here to impress.  It’s just me; it’s just us.”  Kurt leans in and brushes his lips against Blaine’s cheekbone.  It surely must scratch and tickle, but Kurt just hums, sweet and happy.  “For me?” 

 _Anything,_  Blaine thinks.  _You must know I’ll do anything for you_.

***

Blaine has never had a Christmas like this one, at least not that he can remember.

Christmases past were small, broken affairs.  Their parents fought even more during the stress of the holidays, and after the divorce their father just didn’t care anymore.  He spent most of the day locked away in his study.  Blaine’s brother did what he could for them: bringing home a tiny tree because he couldn’t carry anything bigger; wrapping small, inexpensive gifts in newspaper and tying them off with twine; finding new Christmas records at the used music store in town.

Blaine would save money all year, pennies and dollars earned from the elderly woman down the block who paid him to play the piano for her an hour in the afternoon a couple of times a week, and from the young couple across the street who let him walk their dog on the weekend.  It never amounted to much, but he always needed to do something special for Cooper, his Coop.  His only big brother.  Cooper, who took better care of him than anyone else could.  Who kissed his scraped knees and elbows when he fell, who taught him how to read music and change the needle on the record player, who taught him how to tie knots and make pancakes without burning one side.

They would set the little tree up in Blaine’s bedroom, draped in old tinsel and homemade decorations, where the twinkling lights were a comfort to Blaine in the dark of the night.  They would sit on the floor with mugs of hot chocolate and unwrap their presents from each other, and for each other, while Dean Martin crackled in the background and a little candle burned merrily in the window.

Blaine doesn’t begrudge a moment of it.  Cooper tried, and did the very best he could.  And it was enough. It’s always been enough.

But that morning is spent around the kitchen table, with snow falling steadily outside, while Kurt and his father groan appreciatively over the eggnog quick bread that Blaine baked and the eggs he scrambled with the onions, peppers, and avocado he found in the refrigerator.

He makes them coffee.  There’s no espresso machine in the house, and Burt only has pre-ground store brand coffee in a can in his cabinet, but Blaine brought with him more than enough whole-bean coffee.

He’s been saving his mark-outs from Starbucks ever since he started working there.  He’s only one person ( _was_  only one person) and he can only drink so much in a week.  Besides, he gets all the free coffee he can ask for during his shifts.  And even though he gives his brother bags of coffee whenever he can, makes Cooper take them, Blaine’s cupboards are still overflowing.  Kurt told him he didn’t need to bring his father a Christmas gift of any kind, but there was no way Blaine was going to show up without  _something_  to offer.  Five pounds of beans isn’t much in the way of a ‘thank you,’ but it’s what he’s got.  And it’s all that fit in his suitcase.

Blaine opens a bag of Komodo Dragon, because it’ll bring out the cinnamon in the bread; he’ll save the Christmas Blend for the next morning.  He measures carefully and grinds the beans fine enough to ensure a full flavor - he won’t serve his boyfriend and his boyfriend’s father weak coffee.  The scent of it, all at once bright and bold, fills Blaine’s lungs.  He complains, but the scent of coffee is a part of him.  He can’t hate what’s given him everything.

For Burt, he sets a warmed mug on the table with a little bit of milk on the side.  For Kurt, Blaine does what he can to create a mocha without the proper equipment.  He finds some dark chocolate chips in the pantry and melts them down in the microwave.  Then he warms a pan of milk on the stovetop, careful not to scald it, and he stirs the thick melted chocolate and the heated milk into the brewed coffee until it’s a smooth, dark brown.  He wishes he had a peppermint stick to add, or foam to draw a pretty little tree in.  Or a heart.

The texture isn’t the same, and the taste is surely different, but the look in Kurt’s eyes when he takes the first sip sends shivers down Blaine’s spine to his toes and makes warmth curl in his belly.  He leans back in his chair, more relaxed than he’s felt since he arrived, and smiles at Kurt.  He lets the warmth of his own coffee - just a bit of cream with cinnamon sprinkled on top - seep into his bones.

This is what Christmas is for.

***

Burt takes Blaine to his shop for a few hours, because it’s Christmas Eve and people are driving around all over the place.  Lima is Burt’s town, and his customers are his neighbors, and just because it’s a holiday doesn’t mean that Burt’s going to let anyone drive around unsafely.  He shows Blaine how to change the oil in a Honda and rotate the tires on a Jeep.  And Blaine earns himself a “good job, kid” and a hearty clap on the shoulder when he puts chains on a customer’s tires without needing any supervision.  The pride that swells up in Blaine at Burt’s approval cuts his breath short and forces him to take a moment to compose himself.  He learned to do that from Cooper and he’s just proven himself to Mr. Hummel.

Burt sends him on home well before he closes the shop for the day wearing a  _Hummel Tires and Lube_  shirt, telling him that Kurt has a surprise for him and not to worry, one of the guys will drop him off at the house later.  Blaine drives back to the house well below the speed limit because it’s been years since he’s driven in the snow and there’s no way he’s going to crash Burt’s car.

When he arrives, the house smells of oranges and cinnamon, of wood smoke and fir trees.  Kurt is in the living room, standing near the fireplace, which is aglow with flames crackling to life behind the grate.  He is beautiful, ethereal with firelight flickering across his skin and dancing in his eyes.  Blaine’s chest feels too tight.

“Hey you!” Kurt’s eyes brighten when he sees Blaine.  “Just in time.”

Blaine shrugs his jacket off and leaves his boots next to Kurt’s by the door.  Kurt has his hands behind his back and a coy little smile on his lips.

“Just in time for what?”  Blaine crosses the room and steps up close to Kurt.  The heat of the fire washes across his legs and Blaine puts his hands on Kurt’s hips, because he can.  He’s allowed.

“Kiss me first.”  Kurt’s just teasing him now, rocking his hips a little, and the muscles and bones shift under Blaine’s palms.  Blaine rolls his eyes and can’t help but smile; Kurt is so open in a way Blaine’s not sure he’ll ever be.  But he leans in and presses a sweet kiss to Kurt’s lips and tastes cinnamon and oranges.

Kurt hums happily against his mouth.  “You have grease on your cheek,” he says when Blaine finally pulls away.  “It’s a good look on you.  Rugged.”

Blaine blushes a little and rubs at the smear he hadn’t known was on his face.  “You have a surprise for me,” he says.  “I can tell. You’ve got that look in your eyes.”

“I do indeed.”  Kurt’s smile is all teeth and joy.  “So, you see these two stockings hanging above the fireplace?”  They’re simple, the classic stocking shape in deep red fabric.  The cuff lining the top is a soft shade of white with little blue snowflakes patterned across it.  Little gold bells are sewn into the cuffs and they jingle merrily when Blaine reaches out to touch one.   _Dad_  is stitched in black thread across the cuff of the larger stocking in a slightly shaky script;  _Kurt_  is stitched across the smaller of the two and the crossbar of the  _t_ is flourished with a gold little star.

“I made these,” Kurt continues, and his voice is softer than it was, and his smile has turned wistful.  Blaine can just see a young Kurt bent over his first sewing machine, squinting down at the thread and needle, and chewing his lip in concentration.  “It was – it was the first Christmas after mom died.  We, dad and I, we didn’t want Christmas to be different, but it was.  How could it not be?  But my mom had been teaching me how to sew and I thought that somehow making these would mean something.  I guess I thought that making these would somehow make it better.”  Kurt swallows and Blaine’s heart aches. 

“Kurt,” he says, and he doesn’t know how to finish.

“Dad and I, we’ve always been good.  We’ve been a good little family.  I know it’s not like that for everyone, for you, but it’s been wonderful for me.  We work together; we take care of each other.  He’s been the best father I could ask for.  But I didn’t know that we were missing something, that  _I_  was missing something.”  Kurt finds Blaine’s eyes, and Blaine sucks in a breath at the wetness shining there.  “I didn’t know I was missing you.”

Blaine feels a tear slip hot down his own cheek.  His heart is pounding in his throat and it almost hurts to breathe.

“But I found you.  I walked into a goddamn coffee shop in Times Square and you were there.”  Kurt smiles and shakes his head in disbelief.  “There you were.  And I,” Kurt pauses and bites his lip against whatever he was going to say.

“Well, I made you something.”  Kurt brings his hands out from behind his back.  He’s holding a new stocking, made of the same fabric as the other two.   _Blaine_  is stitched into the cuff at the top (the handwriting is so much steadier) and the end of the  _e_  loops into a clever little coffee cup.  Blaine puts his hand to his mouth to hold back the sob that threatens to burst from him. 

“I – it took forever to find the same fabric,” Kurt continues.  His voice is shaky and nervous.  “But I did.  I hope this is ok.  I know it’s, well I know it’s kind of a lot.”

“It’s amazing,” Blaine breathes out, and the smile that blooms on Kurt’s face is warmer than the crackling fire. “You’re amazing.”

Kurt hangs the stocking on the fireplace, next to the one bearing his own name, in the space created just for this.  Blaine can’t wait another moment.  He throws his arms around Kurt and pulls him in tight.  It  _is_  a lot, and it’s everything that Blaine could want but never thought he’d have.

 _I love you_ , he mouths against Kurt’s neck.  He wants to say it, aches to say it – he’s not going to be able to hold on to it much longer.

***

Christmas Day is a quiet and lovely affair.  They wake up late and none of them changes out of their pajamas.  There are presents to unwrap: the coffee Blaine brought for Burt, and the Broadway music collection on vinyl that Burt thought Blaine might like.  (He does.)  Kurt gives him a soft, thick cardigan in a beautiful maroon, and Blaine bites his lip as Kurt unwraps the folder of sheet music.  It’s the first draft of Blaine’s final project and on those handwritten pages are everything he feels for Kurt, everything he wants and dreams of.  Later, when they’re alone, he’ll play the melodies for him.  For now, Kurt thanks him and holds the pages to his chest.

 _A Christmas Story_  plays in the background while the three of them cook dinner.  Burt takes care of the turkey that is clearly too big for just the three of them while Blaine handles the mashed potatoes and green beans. Kurt made pies the night before and he helps mix up a simple salad and warms the rolls before setting the table.

Blaine soaks up every last minute of it.  He hopes, he  _wants_ , but he doesn’t know if he’ll have this again next year.  He needs to revel in every sweet, wonderful moment of it: the depth of Burt’s barking laughter; the clatter of forks on plates, the scent of roasted turkey and cranberry sauce; and the heat of Kurt’s hand on his forearm when he reaches past for the bottle of sparkling cider.  He needs to memorize all of it, everything, for the possibility of it not always being there.

He hopes it always is though.  He hopes this is his life forevermore.

And after dinner, when Burt has gone to bed, saying something about too much food (but the glimmer in his eyes when he says it names him liar), Blaine finds himself at the big window in the living room, staring out into the snow-drenched darkness.  The TV has been turned off, and Christmas music is spinning from the old record player in the corner.  The lights are dimmed, letting the fire still burning merrily behind the grate cast a warm, flickering glow throughout the living room.  The lights of the Christmas tree glimmer off the ornaments.

_So this is Christmas._

Blaine is happy, content, and he is in love, and in that moment there’s nothing else to his world.  It flows through him, warms and lights every place inside of him that was cold and dark for so long.  He just can’t think of any of this ending, can’t think of it ever being over and back out of his reach, not when it’s so perfect right then.

“Hey,” Kurt whispers in his ear as his arms slide around Blaine’s middle.

Blaine startles, so lost in thought he hadn’t even noticed Kurt approaching.  “Hey you.”

“Everything ok?  You seem…” Kurt trails off and rests his chin on Blaine’s shoulder.

“It’s just,” Blaine takes a deep breath.  “It’s just  _family_ , you know?”  He doesn’t know how else to phrase it.

Because Blaine still aches with it, with the thought that maybe he cares more for Kurt than Kurt does for him, despite the key and the stocking and Christmas and everything else.  It’s silly and ridiculous, and Blaine knows that, he does.  But his fears and doubts have a way of creeping back in.  He tries not to want a lot of things from his life, because up until now, his life has had a way of denying him those very things.  He has to work so hard for each and every thing he gets that it gets exhausting.

But staring out into that blue-black dark, with Christmas lights twinkling in the distance through the snow drifting slow and delicate past the window frame, and a piano playing in the background, Blaine knows, soul-deep, what he wants from his life more than anything.

 _I just want you for my own, more than you could ever know_.

Blaine needs Kurt to know.  If he says nothing else of import in his life, at least he’ll have said this.  He turns his head and his nose brushes against Kurt’s cheek.  The time is right.

“I love you,” Blaine whispers, and he pulls it from the very depths of his being.  He’s never meant anything more. 

Kurt is quiet for a long moment, and Blaine can feel the steady thump of Kurt’s heartbeat.

“I love you too,” Kurt murmurs.  Blaine closes his eyes and tucks the words deep into his heart.  He knows at some point they’ll probably say things to each other in the heat of the moment that they won’t mean.  But he’ll always have those words, safe in his soul - a truth he’ll never forget.  They’ll be a lifeline to Kurt if they ever find themselves pulling apart.

“Merry Christmas.”  And it’s  _I love you_  all over again.


	11. Dirty Chai

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is for Ash, who got pick a scene from the Crema verse for his birthday present, and he picked this. It’s set back during the Macchiato chapter. Enjoy some porn.

“Blaine,” Kurt’s voice is low and needy in his ear, and the hot gust of breath raises the hair on the back of Blaine’s neck.  “Can we – your room?” Kurt shifts in his lap, presses closer, and Blaine chokes back a moan.  It already feels like too much.  The heat is pooling low and aching in his hips and his breath is coming fast and harsh, and they haven’t even started.  There’s a spot on his neck, right at the tender junction of his shoulder, which burns in the shape of Kurt’s mouth.  
  
“Blaine?”  Kurt’s voice is muffled against his neck, but the question breaks through.  He knows what Kurt’s asking; he knows what it means.  Blaine knows what he wants.  Finally.  
  
“Ok,” Blaine whispers into the quiet of the apartment around him.  There’s music coming from Blaine’s laptop, something he put on earlier in the evening, but the air around him feels thick and charged.  He can barely breathe.  
  
Kurt draws back and Blaine’s chest tightens at the sight of him.  Kurt’s lips are so red and already a little swollen from Blaine’s kisses and his eyes are a dark, stormy grey.  His hair, usually swept immaculately up and back, is a mess from Blaine’s grasping hands and a lock of hair sweeps across his forehead.  Blaine digs his fingers tighter into Kurt’s hips at the look of desperate longing on Kurt’s striking face.  
  
 _Don’t ask me if I’m sure_ , he begs silently.  
  
“Ok,” Kurt repeats back, and his voice is deeper, raspier than Blaine’s ever heard it, and suddenly he’s surging in for another kiss that Blaine feels in his very bones.  Blaine hopes that his mouth remembers how to kiss, because his brain is quickly losing the ability for coherent thought or coordination.  He whimpers when Kurt pushes off his lap and stands up, and the loss of pressure on his groin is sweetly painful.  Even like this, with an erection pressed so obviously against his fly, Kurt is effortlessly graceful and elegant, beautiful in motion in a way Blaine will never be.  
  
Blaine gets unsteadily to feet with far less panache than Kurt, but it doesn’t matter because Kurt’s arms are around him immediately, pulling him flush to Kurt’s body.  Blaine gasps.  Kurt’s erection is hard and unmistakable against his hip, and his mouth goes dry just with the thought of it.  
  
 _I made him feel like this_ , Blaine thinks, giddy with it.  It’s been so very long since he’s felt wanted; since he’s felt like he’s made someone else feel desired in return.  Blaine had forgotten the heady rush of it – the way his blood sings and his skin feels stretched too tight over his bones.  The way everything that isn’t touch and taste and smell and sweat falls away.  
  
Kurt drags his fingers through Blaine’s hair and tilts his head back for another kiss, deep and wet and Blaine moans into it.  He can’t help it.  He clings to Kurt’s back and opens his mouth wider for Kurt’s tongue.  When he thinks about it, he’s never actually felt like this.  
  
***  
  
Blaine’s heart is pounding, hard and fast and so loud in his ears he almost can’t hear Kurt breathing.  Almost.  Kurt is in his bedroom.  His  _bedroom_.  He doesn’t remember the stumbling steps they took across his small living room or the way Kurt’s fingers crept up underneath his shirt to tease at his waist, but Blaine finds himself backed up against the edge of his bed.  The mattress is firm and obvious behind his knees and Blaine keeps himself from sinking down onto it through willpower alone.  He wants to though.  He wants to stretch out beneath Kurt and let Kurt know every last part of him.  
  
He glances around.  His room is as tidy as it always is.  His bookshelf is organized (by height and genre) and his nightstand is free of any clutter; the water glass even sits on a coaster, though he doesn’t remember ever putting it on one.  The bed is made and his clothes are hanging nice and neat in the closet - his Starbucks polos are shoved to the side so the heavy scent of coffee might not leech into the rest of his wardrobe; it does anyway.  The only mess on the floor is Kurt’s shirt, which he’s pulled up and off and dropped to the ground before Blaine can even draw in another breath.  
  
 _Oh_ , Blaine thinks fuzzily.  
  
Kurt is exquisite – pale and muscled in a way that’s so often masked by the slim cut of his expensive clothes.  But he’s broad, with wide shoulders and strong arms.  Blaine doesn’t want to say that his waist is  _thick_ , but it is.  Where Blaine curves in, Kurt is solid and smoothly muscled.  Blaine wants to reach out and rest his hands in the indentations of Kurt’s hips, exposed by the low cut of his pants, and drag his thumbs along the crease of his groin.  It aches in his gut to know that he’s allowed to do just that; that it’s wanted from him.  
  
“Is this ok?” Kurt asks, and he takes a hold of the hem of Blaine’s t-shirt.  It’s an old ratty thing from his freshman year at NYU.  It’s got a hole in the collar and the lettering is so faded it’s hard to read.  But it’s his favorite.  
  
Blaine nods.  It’s more than ok.  God it’s so much more than ok.  
  
Gooseflesh rises all across his body as Kurt slowly draws his shirt up and over his head.  He flushes hotly as Kurt rakes his eyes, gone dark with arousal, appreciatively across his bared torso and lingers on his small, dusky nipples, the sharp cut of his hipbones.  Blaine clenches his fists to keep from wrapping his arms protectively around himself.  
  
Blaine knows, objectively, that he’s not awful looking – at least physically, even if he is shorter than average.  He’s not ashamed of how he looks; he changes without embarrassment in the locker room at the gym.  For the most part, he’s rather indifferent towards his body.  It exists; skin and muscles and bones all working together to get him through the day.  But he can’t be apathetic when he’s standing half-naked in his bedroom, bathed in the warm light of his floor lamp, with a gorgeous man staring at him like he’s some kind of wonderful thing to behold.  Blaine shivers and he feels his nipples harden.  He feels feverish even though the air is cool; the radiator in this room has never quite worked right.  
  
“You,” Kurt pauses and licks his lips.  “You are so lovely.”  His voice is soft and ragged.  
  
Blaine has to close his eyes against the aching rush of emotion that floods through him.   He doesn’t want to believe it, but he has to.  He can’t deny the look in Kurt’s eyes or the quality of his voice, so honest, so fucking  _sincere_.  
  
Kurt reaches out and strokes a careful hand down the center of Blaine’s chest, all the way down to his waistband, and the pause of his fingers is its own kind of cautious question.  Blaine nods again and the muscles in his stomach tremble as Kurt’s strong, dexterous fingers undo the fly of his pants.  Blaine sucks in a sharp breath as Kurt’s fingers dip low and brush against heated skin and coarse hair.  Kurt undresses them slowly, easing Blaine’s pants down over his hips and stroking his fingers along the insides of Blaine’s thighs as he does so.  Blaine’s knees shake and he struggles to breathe.  
  
It feels like ten seconds and an hour before they’re both gloriously, blissfully, frighteningly naked.  Blaine lets himself stare – at Kurt’s strong shoulders, the length of his torso, the leanness of his thighs.  His vulnerable, naked feet.  Kurt is breathing heavily and the movement shifts his skin across his muscles and bones.  Blaine wants to touch.  He is desperate to touch.  
  
“You can,” Kurt says, and it’s just barely above a whisper.  “I want you to.”  
  
Blaine doesn’t know if he said something out loud, or if Kurt can just read his mind, but the permission rings like a bell throughout his body, shaking open all sorts of locked windows and closed doors.  
  
He maps Kurt’s body with measured, increasing confident touches.  He strokes his palms down Kurt’s arms first, because it’s easiest and safest to begin with what he already knows.  He knows Kurt’s arms and how they fit around him so perfectly.  He lingers on Kurt’s lower ribs because it makes Kurt gasp and shiver, and slips his arms around Kurt’s waist to stroke at the long curve of his spine and brush his fingertips across the top of his ass.  Kurt shudders in his hold and presses a kiss to Blaine’s cheek and then his mouth.  Blaine wants to kneel at Kurt’s feet and map the bone of his ankle with his tongue.  
  
Kurt’s thighs are firm and lightly haired beneath his hands as Blaine feels his way up to Kurt’s groin.  The skin is velvet soft and so hot to the touch, stretched across the hard length. Blaine knows what a cock feels like, of course he does, but this is so very different.  The heat of him, silky-hot in his palm and the delicate tracing of veins is all at once familiar and heart-stoppingly foreign.  Kurt gasps when Blaine rubs his thumb gently across the head, swiping through the slick beading at the tip, and drops his forehead to Blaine’s shoulder.  His breath is hot and damp against Blaine’s skin.  
  
Blaine rests his hand on Kurt’s chest, fingers spread wide, and feels the rapid pounding of Kurt’s heart beneath his palm.  
  
“Blaine,” Kurt breathes out, and the sound of him, raw and craving, is the chord progression Blaine has been searching for forever.  
  
“Please,” he says, but he’s not entirely sure what he’s asking for.  
  
Kurt finally,  _finally_  pushes him back onto the bed, and Blaine goes gratefully.  He doesn’t know how much longer he could have remained standing.  Kurt stretches out on top of him and Blaine bites his lip at the drag of Kurt’s cock against his thigh.  He wants to shy away and he wants to grab Kurt’s ass and pull him closer.  The sheets are cool against his back and Kurt is so very warm against the rest of him.  His mouth is even hotter as he dips low for another kiss and his tongue strokes against Blaine’s in a way that makes his toes curl and his spine arch up for more.  Blaine shifts restlessly when Kurt nips at his lower lip before surging back in for another deep, wet kiss and he spreads his thighs almost unconsciously.  Kurt slides between his legs and presses close.  So close.  
  
Blaine’s mind swims with the possibilities and the implications.  He knows there are any number of things the two of them could do tonight, and he also knows that they don’t have to do anything at all.  But he wants to.  He wants everything.  He just doesn’t know how to make Kurt  _understand_  that there are some things they haven’t talked about.  
  
All he knows is that Kurt is touching him like no one,  _no one_  else ever has.  There are hands on his chest, his arms, rubbing firm and tender across his stomach.  Kurt squeezes at the thick muscles in his thighs and tongues wetly at the prominent tendon of Blaine’s neck.  Kurt touches the backs of his knees like somehow they’re precious too.  Blaine gasps, high and needy, when lips close around his nipple, and he groans when a spit-slick palm closes around his cock and pumps slowly, as if he needs any help at all staying hard.  
  
“Kurt,” Blaine whimpers, when Kurt uses his knees to push his thighs apart a little further and starts to slide fingers down behind his balls.  He needs Kurt to know, to  _understand_ , before anything else happens.  
  
“Mmm?” Kurt nips at his lower lip again and swipes a thumb across a hard, sensitive nipple.  
  
“Kurt, I’m - it’s just, I’ve never -” but Blaine can’t say it.  He doesn’t know how.  The words stick fast in his throat, mortifying and awful.  He’s just a boy, just a silly boy and there’s no way Kurt’s going to want him now.  How could he possibly want someone like him?  The embarrassment burns hot on his face and Blaine resists the urge to hide behind his hands.  
  
There was a boy, once, years ago, when Blaine still thought that maybe he was meant for someone.  He’d been so tentative to touch Blaine, to initiate any sort of physical contact, that the whole affair, such as it was, had been blundering and clumsy.  They’d hardly kissed, and he’d never held Blaine’s hand.  Whatever intimacy they managed was painfully, horribly awkward and Blaine avoided it as much as possible; he suspected that Jeremiah did the same.  He’d splutter whenever Blaine managed to come, and then spit indelicately into his palm or a tissue after.  They’d never gone any further than that, and their breakup had been a mutual relief.  But Blaine can’t say that the short relationship, if could even be called that, hadn’t affected him profoundly, because it had.  
  
But Kurt just cocks his head, gazing down at Blaine as the embarrassed flush darkens.  Blaine waits, he knows what’s coming, and he holds his breath as understanding blooms on Kurt’s beautiful face.  
  
“Oh, Blaine.”  He ducks in and presses a warm kiss to Blaine’s throat, right at his pulse, and then to his mouth.  Blaine’s mouth parts so easily for Kurt and the warmth slides down his spine as Kurt’s tongue slides along his.  “I don’t care.  I don’t care about any of that.  Just you.  I just care about you.  I want you.”  Kurt finds Blaine’s mouth in another heated, desperate kiss.  “So much.  God, Blaine.  You don’t even know.”  
  
 _I’ve never wanted anyone else like this_ , Blaine thinks, but can’t say.  
  
“Blaine, we don’t have to do this.  We don’t have to do anything, if that’s what you want.  Just tell me what you want.”  
  
Blaine’s body aches at the mere thought of not being touched by Kurt.  He wants.  He wants those strong, capable hands all over him.  He wants mouths and teeth and fingers and everything else.  He  _wants_.  
  
“I want you,” is what he says.  The words flow out of his lungs and carry loud and truthful into the quiet of the bedroom.  
  
Kurt doesn’t smile, but there’s something in his lust-dark eyes that makes Blaine’s heart beat even faster.  His whole body is throbbing with urgency.  Kurt ducks down and captures Blaine’s mouth again in an ardent kiss.  Blaine thinks he could spend the rest of his life living off of Kurt’s kisses.  
  
“Where’s your lube?”  Kurt asks against his lips, and Blaine is so thankful that he doesn’t ask if he’s  _sure_.  He’s never been more sure of anything.  
  
“In the drawer.”  Blaine bites his lip again, because he knows what he doesn’t have in that drawer, and Kurt’s about to notice.  
  
“You – you don’t have…?” Kurt asks.  He’s kneeling up on the bed, still between Blaine’s parted thighs, bottle of lube in one hand and nothing in the other.  The muscles in his thighs are tense and his cock is dark and hard against his belly.  His lips are swollen and his hair is a mess.  He looks ethereal and Blaine cannot believe that this creature wants him.  
  
“No, I – no.”  
  
That’s when Kurt grins down at him, sly and a little dirty.  “It’s ok, I’ve got one in my bag.”  
  
Blaine gapes up at him.  “You – in your bag, you keep those in your bag?”  He feels cold suddenly.  He can only imagine how many other men have found themselves utterly and completely besotted with Kurt.  He really can’t blame them.  
  
“Well,” Kurt shrugs and his eyes are sparkling.  “Only very recently.”  He leans down and kisses Blaine again, his tongue surging in deep.  He tastes of cream and oranges and Blaine’s own spit.  “There’s this one guy I’m kind of hopelessly optimistic about.  I didn’t want to be caught unprepared should he finally succumb to my clumsy advances.”  
  
Blaine shivers.  Kurt – tall, beautiful, wonderful Kurt – has been carrying a condom in his satchel because of _him_.  The world makes no sense at all.  He slides his hands into Kurt’s hair and angles his head for a better kiss.  He’s sure the sheets must smell of stale espresso, but Blaine can sense nothing but the heavy heat of Kurt’s body and his own sharp arousal.  
  
“One second,” Kurt murmurs, and moves to get off the bed, but Blaine grabs his wrist.  
  
“We,” he pauses and licks his lips.  Kurt is staring at him in confusion.  He can’t believe he’s about to say what he is.  Every sex-ed class he’s ever had is screaming at him.  “We don’t really need that, do we?”  
  
Kurt’s eyes go impossibly dark and Blaine almost wants to take it back, but then Kurt is leaning down and his mouth is on his and so is his body.  
  
***  
  
The first finger is nerve-wracking and Blaine sucks in a breath at the wet slide of it.  There’s so much lube he can feel it on his thighs and Kurt is petting his stomach in gentling strokes.  But the second is a revelation.  His body opens around Kurt’s slowly thrusting fingers in a way he never thought possible.  Pleasure is sparking all along his skin, bright and hot, and everything feels too tight, too much.  He wants to push down and pull Kurt deeper into him, but he settles for gripping at Kurt’s shoulder and accepting the sweet kisses that Kurt peppers across his face and lips.  
  
The third finger is the entire world opening before him.  He moans loud and wanton as those long fingers fuck deep into him, and then deeper – searching and finding.  The pleasure of it burns deep in his gut and spreads out all along his limbs.  He feels loose and heavy, slick and stretched open.  His cock throbs in time with his heart and he just wants – he doesn’t want to wait anymore.  
  
“Kurt,” he moans, the name thick on his tongue, and he tugs at Kurt’s shoulder.  “Please.”  He doesn’t know what else to say.  He’s sweating and it’s too hot in the cool room.  His hips are rising and falling with the steady motion of Kurt’s fingers and he can’t think past the rolling waves of pleasure.  
  
“Ok.”  Kurt pulls his fingers back and Blaine bites his lip at the loss.  He knows it won’t be for long.  
  
Blaine thinks about turning over onto his belly or getting to his hand and knees, but Kurt is grabbing at his thighs and pulling his body into position, spreading him wide. He feels exposed, but Kurt’s hands on him keep him grounded, keep him safe.  He knows, just knows, that Kurt would never do anything to hurt him.  
  
“Ok,” Kurt says again and his voice is so much deeper than usual.  Blaine digs his nails into Kurt’s shoulders and nods emphatically.  He’s so very ready for this.  
  
And then Kurt’s  _there_ , pushing against Blaine’s slickened and stretched hole and slipping inside.  
  
Blaine gasps and his head digs back into the pillow.  It feels like nothing he’d ever expected.  There’s no pain; just the heavy, aching pressure of Kurt fucking into him with shallow thrusts, past the tight rings of muscle, until he can go no further.  Blaine takes a long, shivery breath when he feels Kurt pause; he’s all the way inside, and Blaine can feel the soft weight of his balls against his ass.  He shifts and the movement inside of him,  _inside_ , makes him gasp again.  Kurt kisses him and strokes his damp hair back off his forehead.  
  
“You can – you can move.  Please, Kurt.”  Blaine shifts again, suddenly desperate for more, and this time Kurt gasps.  Blaine can only imagine what this must feel like for him.  
  
Kurt is big – hard and throbbing inside of him, but Blaine’s body adjusts, gives way to the slow gentle thrusts until the slide eases and becomes smooth.  He must be holding back, and Blaine is grateful for it.  Blaine runs his hands down Kurt’s back, feels the shifting of his working muscles, until he can grasp at Kurt’s flexing ass.  Kurt groans and dips his head to kiss Blaine. It’s wet and messy – more teeth and panting against each other’s mouths than an actual kiss.  It’s perfect.  
  
Blaine feels every thrust, every twist of Kurt’s hips down to his bones and beyond.  He can feel the heat of Kurt’s body against his, growing warmer with every moment, and he can hear Kurt’s breaths becoming ragged and desperate.  Kurt’s skin is sweat-slick against his and the wet, grasping noise of their bodies moving together is a wonderful kind of obscene.  
  
A strangled groan pulls from his throat when Kurt’s hand slides between their bodies and takes a hold of his cock.  Everything is so sensitive and the heat and grip of Kurt’s lube-wet hand makes Blaine’s stomach clench and his toes curl.  He was getting close before, just from the drag of Kurt inside of him and the pressure of him fucking up against his prostate, but he’s pushed that much closer by the easy, practiced pumping of his fist.  
  
“Kurt,” he moans again.  He wants to tell Kurt, explain to him, what he’s doing to him, how he feels.  He want to tell him how every thrust is like thunder and lightning at the same time, how it takes his breath away and fills his heart with something he didn’t even know he was missing.  But Kurt’s name is the only word he has left.  
  
Blaine comes with an aching, keening sob, back arching off the bed, when Kurt bumps against his prostate and twists his hand around the head of his cock with impeccable timing.  The world narrows to the heavy drag of Kurt inside of him as Blaine spills, white-hot and throbbing in time with his racing heart, over Kurt’s still-moving fist and onto his own belly.  The warm splatter of his own come against his skin makes him shake and shiver.  It feels like it goes on forever, waves and waves of pleasure wracking through him, making his cock twitch in Kurt’s hand and his ass clench down around Kurt still thrusting inside of him.  
  
The sweat is dripping down his neck and Blaine wants Kurt to come.  He wants to feel it, wants to know he made feel Kurt that way.  He’s quickly becoming over-sensitive, but that’s its own kind of pleasure too.  It sparks too-bright along his nerves as Kurt fucks into him over and over.  Every part of him is shivering and his throat is tight with some unnameable emotion.  
  
Kurt’s face is twisted in pleasure and concentration, and Blaine wants to smooth his furrowed brow.  He is so utterly gorgeous like this – flushed and panting and  _wrecked_  – that it makes Blaine’s belly clench again in want.  Kurt must be close, because his thrusts are becoming unsteady and Blaine can feel the muscles in his back and thighs trembling with exertion.   
  
“Kurt,” Blaine says, and purposefully tightens down around Kurt’s cock, impossibly hard inside of him.  The choked sob that leaves Kurt’s straining throat is its own symphony.  “Kurt, please.  I want you to.”  Blaine slides his hand up Kurt’s trembling back and into his sweat-damp hair, pulls him down into a gasping kiss.  
  
“Blaine,” Kurt grits out against his lips, and then his whole body spasms sharply as he orgasms, wet and hot and  _obvious_  inside of Blaine.  Blaine shudders at the feel of it, so insanely intimate that his heart skips a beat with the thought that Kurt just came inside of him.  
  
Kurt is shaking, panting harshly against his collarbone where he’s dropped his head.  Blaine smoothes his hands up Kurt’s sweat-slick back over and over, gentling him, and he murmurs nonsense into Kurt’s ear until he can feel Kurt’s thundering heart begin to slow.  Kurt is still hot and throbbing inside of him and Blaine revels in it.  The room smells of sweat and musk and come and  _boy_.  Blaine closes his eyes and just breathes.  
  
It takes a long moment where they are just lying against each other, feeling each other breaths and hearts, until Kurt shifts back and slips wetly from Blaine’s body.  Blaine bites his lip at the suddenly strange feeling of _not_  being achingly, wonderfully full.  Kurt is kissing his cheeks, his neck, and he feels stretched open and sore, but he doesn’t hurt - not in the way he thought he might.  He feels like he’s just been allowed to trulyfeel.  
  
“Blaine,” Kurt murmurs, right up close to his ear and Blaine feels Kurt stroking his hair back.  He sounds fond, and adoring, and maybe a little concerned.  “Is – are you-” he trails off with a kiss pressed to Blaine’s damp temple.  
  
“I’m perfect,” Blaine says, and he means it.  He opens his eyes.  Kurt is flushed a lovely shade of pink and his eyes are heavy-lidded and dark as he looks at Blaine.  “You are perfect.”  And he means that too.  
  
He hadn’t known what this would be like – how could he have possibly known?  Blaine has spent a lot of time actively not thinking about sex, but if this is it, if this is what it’s like with Kurt, then he’s going to have to reevaluate his previous mindset.  
  
Kurt huffs a laugh.  He shifts onto his side and pulls Blaine’s loose, lax body into his arms.  He’s still trembling, fine shivers running up and down his back and gooseflesh follows in the wake of Kurt’s soothing fingers.  Muscles he didn’t even know he had are sore.  Blaine buries his nose into Kurt’s collarbone and breathes in the scent of him – salt and sweat and the sweet tang of his cologne.  
  
Blaine closes his eyes again, safe and secure in Kurt’s arms, and lets himself just  _be_.


	12. Irish Coffee Part 1

De Robertis Pasticceria is packed with hungry, impatient customers when Kurt gets there a little after 5:30pm on a chilly late-January evening.  It’s a few long blocks from Blaine’s apartment, but the wait and the extra walk is well worth it for the dozen cannolis he’s going to pick up.  He stamps his feet to knock the grey slush from his boots (his favorite pair of Dr. Martens) before he enters the narrow, cramped bakery and gets in line behind a woman he vaguely recognizes from the neighborhood.

Dinner is supposed to be a surprise for Blaine, and Kurt’s bringing home one of Blaine’s favorite desserts, as well as making a simple, quick pasta dish to go with it.  He knows there’s a loaf of French bread on the counter and garlic butter in the fridge.  He can whip something fantastic up for the both of them in no time at all.  Maybe Blaine will even let him use his espresso machine to make them those delicious little drinks with chocolate sauce and orange peels.  Blaine’s been working so very hard for school, not to mention keeping up his hours at Starbucks, and Kurt wants to give him as much of a night off as possible.  Kurt can see the stress gathering in the line of Blaine’s shoulders and drawing tight in the curve of his back.  He knows dinner won’t solve anything, but he hopes it might let Blaine relax a little, help him take a deep breath.

Blaine’s classes have started up again after the winter holiday and he’s thrown himself headfirst into his assignments with a passion and intensity that makes Kurt vibrate with pride and affection.  It’s so clear to Kurt, to anyone, that Blaine loves this – loves writing and composing – and that he’s incredibly brilliant at it.  Kurt has every belief in the world that Blaine will make something huge and wonderful of his life, and he can’t wait to be a tiny little piece of it.

Sometimes Kurt sits on the floor of Blaine’s living room, with his own sketchpad propped on his lap, and just watches as Blaine scratches out notes and chords on sheet music, or maps out scenes and dialogue in an old worn notebook.  Blaine seems to handwrite everything and Kurt loves the neat and tidy line of his script.  His eyebrows draw adorably together in concentration and he tends to hum when he writes, tapping out the rhythms curling through his brain and down his arm to his fingers.

But Kurt wants to take Blaine’s mind off of school and his future and everything else, only if for a night.  They’ll eat, they’ll talk (about things other than work and class), and maybe they’ll even catch up on some of the TV shows they’re getting behind on.  Kurt brought his DVR over from his own apartment because he’s been spending most of his evenings at Blaine’s anyway.  They’ll curl up together on the sofa, with Blaine pulled snug and comfortable between Kurt’s thighs, back warm against his chest.  Kurt will stroke his hands across the thick, tight muscles of Blaine’s shoulders and down his arms as he presses light kisses to Blaine’s neck and his ears, until the tension melts away and Blaine finally relaxes against him.

And then, later, he’ll get Blaine into bed and help him relax in other ways.

Kurt balances the box of pastries in one hand as he unlocks the front door.  He slings his bag into the waiting chair and toes his wet boots off and manages to get them onto the boot rack with just one hand.  He’s just gotten his heavy pea coat hung up by the door when slight movement from the living room catches his eye; Blaine isn’t supposed to be home for at least another hour.  Kurt freezes and almost drops the box of cannoli on the floor.

There is a man sleeping on Blaine’s couch.  He is tall - taking up the entire length of the couch - and he is naked save for a pair of snug black boxer-briefs.

He’s met a number of Blaine’s friends already - the coworkers he’s close with, the classmates he’s known since freshman year at NYU - but Kurt does not recognize this man, at least not by his naked torso or his thick, dark hair.  He’s certainly not any of Blaine’s fellow Starbucks employees, because they all went out to a tiny little tucked-away karaoke bar in Greenwich the other week, and this man was not crammed into the velvet booth with them, nor was he crooning bad 80s rock ballads while sipping a whiskey sour.  And if this is a robbery he’s just interrupted, it’s the least effective one he’s ever heard of.

Kurt is about to back out of the apartment, or reach into his pocket to call 911, or Blaine, when the man shifts on the couch - his smooth, tanned skin stretching across incredibly toned musculature - and turns his head towards Kurt.  Kurt gasps aloud then, because he abruptly recognizes this man in Blaine’s apartment.  He knows him.

He knows this face from TV and from movies.  He knows that jaw line and those cheekbones from print ads and men’s fashion spreads.

Somehow, for some reason, Cooper Anderson - two-time Golden Globe winner and Oscar nominee  - Cooper fucking Anderson is asleep on his boyfriend’s couch.  In his underwear.  Kurt grips the box of pastries so tightly the cardboard dents and crumples under the pressure.  He’s unsure if he  _should_ be calling the police or not.

There’s something about the sweep of the man’s dark hair across his forehead, or maybe it’s the line of his nose, that makes Kurt’s breath catch in his throat.  Because suddenly he knows this (exceptionally handsome) face from somewhere else too.

He glances across the living room at the picture of Blaine and his brother that hangs on the wall.  It’s an older photo, taken at Blaine’s high school graduation.  Blaine’s hair was shorter then, and styled down almost flat to his head with pomade, while his brother’s hair was much longer, a shaggy mess of dark brown hair falling around his laughing face.  In the photo, they have their arms around each other’s shoulders, and Blaine is tucked up small into his brother’s side as his brother tugs on the tassel of his graduation cap.

Kurt glances frantically back and forth between the sleeping man and the previously innocuous photo on the wall as the comprehension blooms hot and embarrassingly obvious in his stomach.  Blaine talks about his brother often, but only obliquely, and Kurt’s fairly certain he can count the number of times Blaine has said his brother’s name on one hand.  It’s almost always “my brother.”  And there are certainly a lot of Andersons in the world, even if there aren’t nearly as many Coopers.

But now, the other face in the photo, Blaine’s brother, is startlingly, unmistakably, the same face as the man asleep before him.  Kurt doesn’t know why, or how, he never made the connection when he’s been staring at this face all these months.

And suddenly, like a flash of lightning across a crackling sky, it all makes sense: Blaine’s reticence to talk about his brother; the expensive gifts that Blaine is so very bashful over; the phone calls at 2:00am that pull Blaine from bed with a whispered, “go back to sleep, it’s just my brother.”

Blaine’s brother is famous - really, really famous.  Small, shy, notice-me-not Blaine has a brother who is loud and bold as brass, whose face is on billboards and movie posters all over the world, and who can hardly go out in public without getting his picture taken.  Kurt feels pieces of Blaine’s personality - his timidity, the way he curls in on himself to seem even smaller - locking into place.

“Are you gonna share those, or just crush them to death?”

The voice startles Kurt so badly he almost drops the box again.  Cooper is awake and staring at him with a cocked, teasing eyebrow.

“You must be Kurt,” Cooper says with a bright smile that belies the absolute oddity of the situation as he rises from the couch.

“I am,” Kurt replies, because what else can he say?  It’s not every day a celebrity introduces himself to him (although he did meet Vera Wang the other week in the halls of Vogue and almost tripped over his own feet).

“I’m Cooper,” he extends his hand out for Kurt to shake.  “I’m Blaine’s big brother.”  Not the actor, not the award winner, not the philanthropist, but just Blaine’s brother.

“Mind if I ask what you’re doing here?  Blaine didn’t say anything to me about you being here.”  Blaine hadn’t even said  _anything_  about Cooper being in town, let alone camping out on his couch.  Kurt is comfortable enough in their relationship now that he’s sure Blaine would tell him if someone was going to be staying at his apartment.

Cooper just smiles, and his teeth are extremely white. “Blaine has a habit of neglecting to mention me to his friends and loved ones.”  The quirk of his eyebrow lets Kurt know exactly which one of those two options he is.  “So you’re the man my baby brother is ass over teakettle for, huh?”

Kurt blushes.  He’s usually so quick with witty responses and retorts, but right now his tongue feels heavy and useless in his mouth.  He doesn’t want to admit he’s a little star-struck, but he is.  Cooper is staring at him with far, far too much knowledge in those bright blue eyes, the color so unlike Blaine’s, and Kurt’s night is not turning out at all like he planned.

“I’ve got dinner to make,” is what he says, because he can’t think of anything else.  “If you’re going to be here you might as well make yourself useful.”

***

Blaine has a couple of old, worn Starbucks aprons that he’s appropriated from the store over the years that he uses when he’s cooking.  It’s how Kurt and Cooper end up in Blaine’s kitchen wearing matching green aprons while the oven preheats, a saucepan simmers, and a huge pot of water comes to boil.  Cooper is still just in his underwear and Kurt tries not to stare when his nipples peek out from the sides.  Kurt is madly, unequivocally, down-to-his-bones in love with Blaine, but Cooper is, well he’s Cooper.

“So, Kurt,” Cooper begins after a few minutes of surprisingly easy silence.  Cooper has a strong presence in Blaine’s tiny kitchen, but Kurt finds him oddly comfortable to be around.  Kurt knows Cooper is a ridiculously famous actor, he knows this – he’s seen Cooper in movies and accepting awards, modeling designer suits in _GQ_  and jogging through the hills of LA in paparazzi photos.  But in person, standing next to him while he chops garlic bulbs, he’s just another guy.  He’s just Blaine’s brother.

“Blaine tells me you’re going to be running Vogue in twenty years.”

Kurt’s hand almost slips as he’s chopping an onion to add to the sauce.  It would certainly put a dent in his career plans if he sliced off his finger now.

“He said that?”

“He talks about you endlessly.”  Cooper leans past him to throw the garlic into the pan.  “He has since September.”

“Oh,” Kurt can’t help the pleased smile that curves his mouth.  He’s always wondered if Blaine talks to people about him half as much as he talks to his friends and family, and his boss, about Blaine.  It means more than he can say to know that Blaine is just as smitten, just as besotted with him as he is with Blaine.  It’s one thing to hear the whispered  _I love you_ s against his lips in the dark of the night, or into his throat in the hazy light of the morning when Blaine is sliding from bed to get to work.  It’s another to hear the truth of it from someone else.

“I told him that if you’re half the man he makes you out to be, it’ll be fifteen years before you’re running the joint.  Tops.”  Cooper knocks against his shoulder with his own bare one and Kurt laughs.

“Well, I think I’d have to get past my boss first.  Carrie’s quite the woman, and I’m pretty sure she’s next in line for the throne.”  The oven beeps that it’s preheated, and Kurt grabs the tray of garlic-buttered bread.  Cooper has to shuffle out of the way in order for Kurt to open the oven door.  His legs are bare beneath the apron and Kurt is not going to be responsible for giving an international star a burn mark.

“Besides,” Kurt continues.  “As awesome as that would be, and as amazing at it as _I_  would be, the longer I work there, the more I think what I really, really want is to design my own line.  That’s not to say that I couldn’t do both – maybe I can – but, right now, being a designer is what’s calling to me.”  Kurt shrugs and slides past Cooper to stir the simmering pasta sauce.  It’s easy to forget that Cooper is almost naked, until he has to brush up against him in Blaine’s cramped kitchen.  Kurt tastes some of the sauce off a wooden spoon, and then adds a bit more basil.  “And you know, I think I’m pretty good at it.”

“I know,” Cooper says, and there’s something in his voice that gives Kurt pause.  “I saw your sketchbooks.”

“What?” Kurt’s voice rises high with indignation.  Cooper is grinning at him a little, leaning against the counter with a languid grace, and it’s so close to the look Blaine gives him when he’s gone and surprised Kurt somehow that Kurt almost does a double take.  “You went through my stuff?”

“Hardly.”  Cooper opens up a box of pasta and sets it next to the pot of water with utter nonchalance, as though he hasn’t just admitted to violating Kurt’s personal space.  “They were lying open on the table.  I have to say, you’re kind of ridiculously talented.  I think you should make me a suit.”

“I – what?”  Kurt asks again, because it’s all his brain can come up with.

“A suit.  Or a tux.  I’ve got a little thing I’m going to at the end of February.”  Cooper opens up the cupboards above the counter, finds a jar of artichoke hearts, and adds them to the sauce.  Kurt is too flabbergasted to chastise him for messing with his dinner.  “Is that enough time?  I’d love for you to make me one.  You have pages and pages of them, and they’re all incredible designs.  But you’re going to have to adjust the proportions for me I think.  I’m a bit taller, and I don’t have the curly hair that Blaine does.  Although that second part shouldn’t affect anything.”  Cooper winks at him then, he fucking  _winks_ , and Kurt is pretty sure that he’ll never be able to watch another of his movies again.

Kurt flushes a deep, ugly red.  Since Blaine, his sketches have taken on a particular shape – a little shorter than the average model, with more muscular thighs, a darker skin tone, and a decidedly pronounced head of riotous, curly hair.

“I would pay you, of course.”  Cooper continues with a flippant gesture of his hand.  “Whatever the going-rate for future world-famous designers is.”

Kurt splutters.  “No, I couldn’t.  You are, well you’re  _you_.  And I’m a nobody.  Literally.  I mean, I won’t always be, but I am now.  You can’t show up anywhere in a nobody-suit.”

Cooper sets down the box of pasta he was about to dump into the boiling water and places both of his hands on Kurt’s shoulders.  His eyes are so very bright and intense and his grip is firm.  “You are not a nobody,” he says, and his voice is deep with sincerity.  “You are Kurt Hummel.  You are twenty-two and you are Carrie Bradshaw’s assistant at Vogue.  People have already heard of you.  They already know you.”

Kurt swallows and shivers all the way down to his toes.  For all his confidence and belief in himself and his talent, he still worries.  How can he not?  He worries that he won’t make it, that talent and hard work won’t be enough.  Sometimes he lies awake late at night, with Blaine breathing slow and steady next to him, and wonders if he could be satisfied as Assistant to the Fashion Editor at Vogue.  He’s pretty sure he wouldn’t be.

But making Cooper Anderson a suit for some event, that could be the start of something huge for him, something life altering.  Because he knows, he just knows that Cooper would talk him up at the event, that he would say Kurt’s name over and over again and praise him to high heaven.  Maybe a little buzz or interest in Kurt’s future work would be drummed up.  It’s a chance; it’s an opportunity that he would be the world’s biggest fool to pass up.

“You wouldn’t have to pay me,” Kurt says finally, and he rolls his eyes at the exaggerated frown on Cooper’s face.

“Of course I would.”  Cooper lets go of his shoulder and steps back, and finally throws the dry pasta into the rapidly boiling water.  The kitchen smells richly of tomatoes and garlic and seasoning.

“Cooper,” Kurt pauses.  What he wants to say is  _you’re family, and family does things for each other_ , but it’s been five (wonderful, incredible, life-changing) months, but he’s not sure he wants Cooper to know  _that_  part of his heart yet.  Not before he’s talked to Blaine about their future – the future that is so clear and obvious to him already.

“You don’t have to pay me,” he finishes.  “I want to do this for you.”  And he does.  He can picture Cooper so clearly in one of his designs and he thrills to his toes with the thought that it will actually happen.  His heart is fluttering and his fingers itch to get a hold of some needle and thread.

Cooper’s face lights up in a huge grin and he gathers Kurt up in a massive hug.  Kurt squeaks and he’s lifted up off his feet by Cooper’s strong arms.  “I knew you’d say yes.”

“You did not,” Kurt protests, but Cooper’s already setting him down and turning back to the dinner that’s cooking away on the stove and in the oven.  It’s homey and domestic and Kurt kind of loves it.  He thinks Cooper might turn out to be the brother-figure he never had.

“So when are you two getting a bigger place?”  Cooper asks as he opens the oven to check on the bread again.  It’s the only loaf there is, and it won’t do to burn it.  He has to stand to the side or else he’d open the door right onto his legs.  The scent of butter and garlic and bread floods the kitchen even more.

“What?”  Kurt samples the sauce again, just to be sure it’s perfect, and he smiles at the sweet and tangy taste of it.  Blaine is going to love this, once he gets past the shock and surprise of Cooper being in his apartment.

“I know this has been Blaine’s place since he moved out here, and it’s suited him just fine all these years, but come on.  There can’t be room enough for the both of you.” Cooper gestures around the tiny space.  “This isn’t even a one-butt kitchen, let alone a two-butt.  And let’s be perfectly honest, Blaine’s not lacking in the ass-department, if you know what I mean.”

“I – we,” Kurt can’t seem to stop getting caught off guard by Cooper.  But it’s not like he hasn’t thought about it.  He has.  He’s thought about getting rid of his own place, even though he has another four months on his sub-lease, and convincing Blaine to do the same.  With their combined incomes, and a bit of searching, he’s certain they could find a one-bedroom somewhere between where they both work, and where Blaine still goes to school.  He’s thought about the shared closet, and both of their books stacked together on the shelves.  He’s thought of the photos on the walls and their towels hanging next to each other’s in the bathroom.  Kurt’s thought about how the bed would be  _theirs_ , and so would everything else.

“Do you two need money for a deposit on a new place or something?  I can help.  You should let me help.  Blaine never lets me help him when it comes to money.”  Cooper pouts a little, and it would look absolutely ridiculous, except he actually does look unhappy about it.

“Oh, well, we, it’s only been-” Kurt doesn’t really want to say that it’s  _too soon_ , because it doesn’t feel like it is.  Not to him.

“You know you’re forever for him, right?” Cooper looks up and captures Kurt’s gaze.  “You’re it.”

Kurt flushes to his ears, because he’s thought about that too - thought about forever with Blaine.  And it’s not scary or frightening or overwhelming.  It just feels  _right_.

“No, Cooper.”  Kurt shakes his head.  “I couldn’t.  We couldn’t.  It wouldn’t be right.”

“Oh come on!”  Cooper bounces on his toes and claps his hands together in excitement.  “We don’t have to tell him.  We’ll come up with a story about how we found the place super cheap because someone died in it or something.  Be my co-conspirator!”

“You – you’ve already done so much for Blaine.  I – we can’t ask for more.”  Blaine hasn’t told him everything about his and Cooper’s childhood, but he’s told Kurt enough.

“It’s not asking if I’m offering.”  Cooper uses the spaghetti server to pull a few noodles from the salted, boiling water to test them.

“You’re already having me make you a suit, which is beyond incredible, and I’m never going to stop thanking you for that.”  Kurt shakes his head and twists the hem of the apron in his hands.  “But I can’t – I can’t take more from you.”

“Fucking hell, you’re worse than Blaine, aren’t you?”  Cooper tosses the server down onto the counter.  “Why can’t either one of you just accept help?  I have the means neither of you have.  I’ve got more than anyone should have.  Why won’t you let me help?  This isn’t a fucking handout, all right?  It’s not like I’m throwing money around.  I’m not.  He’s my brother, Kurt.  My  _brother_.  There is nothing I wouldn’t do for him.  But he’s got more pride than Darcy.”  Cooper stops and runs his hands through his hair.  Kurt tries to swallow down the tight lump in his throat.  He knows now why Cooper has won the awards and earned the accolades and critical praise that he has.  The emotion in him is raw and powerful, and it crackles in the air around them.

“Blaine hasn’t had the easiest life.  Our family is, well, it’s not the best.  But we had each other, and we made do with what we had.  But I ran, Kurt.  I left him behind.  Do you have any idea what that’s like?  Leaving the person you love most in the world behind?  For your own selfish purposes?  But I had to.  I had an opportunity and I had to take it.  I would have regretted it every day of my life if I’d stayed, but-”

“You’ve been trying to make it up to him ever since.”  The words are bitter on Kurt’s tongue, but they need to be said.

“There’s no way to.”  Cooper’s face is drawn tight and his jaw is clenched.  Kurt can see the old pain burning in his eyes and the muscle twitching in his cheek.

“He doesn’t hate you for leaving.”  Kurt says cautiously.  It’s something they’ve talked about a little, lying in bed together when Blaine is more open than he usually is.  “You have to know that.  He doesn’t blame you for anything.”

There’s a long pause as Cooper takes a deep breath and folds his arms across his chest.  Kurt’s heart is pounding; he’s overstepped his bounds.  He’s sure of it.

“Is he forever for  _you_?” Cooper fixes Kurt with a hard look and turns the conversation back to him.  Kurt can feel his knees begin to shake and the sweat gathers on his palms.  This must be how Blaine felt when he met Burt.  Nervous.  Scared shitless.  Eager to prove his worth to the person who matters the most to the man he loves.

Kurt swallows again and when he closes his eyes briefly, he sees Blaine.  He always does.  Sweet, beautiful, talented Blaine who is completely and utterly  _his_.  Just the same way as Kurt is wholly Blaine’s.

“I, yes.  Yes.”  And the words taste like  _I do_.

“So what are you waiting for?” Cooper throws his hands up.  “Because you’re young?  Because it hasn’t been that long?  So what?  When you know, you fucking  _know_.”

“My dad, I think he knew,” Kurt leans heavily against the counter.  “The moment he saw Blaine he  _knew_ that was it for me.”  He thinks that maybe he knew too, from the moment he walked into that Starbucks.

“So let me help!”  Cooper’s voice, broken and hurting, thunders through the small kitchen.  “Let me help you both.  I want to.  It’s all I ever want.  What is all this for if I can’t help him?  And now you.”

Kurt licks his lips.  He’s done things on his own for so long.  He has his father, and his father is a better parent than anyone could ask for, but there are some things that are still beyond his means.  And here is someone offering to help him, and Blaine, start their lives together off a little easier.  Why should he turn that down?  Some unreasonable sense of pride?  Kurt knows the follies of pride.

“Ok,” he says, and it comes out almost a whisper.  “We can talk about this.”

He’s back in Cooper’s arms almost before he finishes his sentence.

“Blaine is my family, and you’re Blaine’s, so now you’re my family too.  It’s what we do for each other.  Let me do this for you.”  Cooper squeezes him tight and all Kurt can do is nod.

It’s how Blaine finds them moments later, standing together in his kitchen, in matching Starbucks aprons, with Cooper still just in his underwear.


	13. Irish Coffee Part 2

“Cooper, why are you naked in my kitchen holding my boyfriend?”

Kurt squeaks, just a little, at the startling interruption of Blaine’s bemused voice, and he can feel the movement of Cooper’s chest as he huffs a laugh.  Kurt wiggles free of Cooper’s hold and turns around, smoothing down his apron in the process.  Blaine is standing in the living room with his arms folded across his chest and his hip cocked to the side as he leans his weight on one foot.  He’s wearing the lovely maroon cardigan Kurt got him for Christmas and the cuffs of his jeans are turned up, exposing the thick socks he’s somehow still wearing.  Blaine tends to take both his shoes and socks off as soon as he gets home, complaining that his feet get too warm, even though more often than not, Kurt wakes up with Blaine’s icy toes jammed under his calves.

Blaine looks a little irritated, or something close to it – his dark eyebrows are drawn together and his lips are pressed into a thin line.  He’s staring straight across the room at Cooper, who’s grinning and wiggling his fingers in greeting at him.  It’s not a look Kurt is used to seeing from his good-natured, if reserved, boyfriend.  He can’t tell if Blaine is simply annoyed that his brother has apparently shown up unannounced, or if he’s irked that Cooper is basically naked with his arms around Kurt.  Or both.  Kurt knows he would be  _displeased_ if he walked in on Blaine in another man’s arms.

“Blaine!” Kurt exclaims.  He wipes his hands on the edge of the apron as he crosses the short distance from the kitchen to the living room.  Blaine’s arms unfold and his face softens as Kurt approaches, his attention shifting away completely from his brother to his boyfriend.  Kurt is really kind of in love with the way Blaine’s eyes go especially whiskey-gold and his lips part just a bit whenever he looks at Kurt.

“You’re home,” Kurt ducks in to press a sweet, lingering kiss to Blaine’s cheek.  His five o’clock shadow scratches his lips and Kurt can’t help but nuzzle against Blaine’s jaw, just briefly, and his eyes flutter shut for a moment.  Blaine smells of the cold winter air, the stuffy dust of the practice room at Tisch, and just faintly of the deep earth of espresso that lingers on his skin even when he hasn’t worked for a few days.  Kurt would curl his arms around Blaine’s shoulders and pull him against his body to greet him properly, but he can feel Cooper staring at the back of his head.  He’s not against showing Blaine affection whenever and wherever he can (Blaine’s gone far, far too long without it), but he’s not putting on a show.

“So are you.”  Blaine’s voice has gone fond and warm and he reaches out to take a hold of Kurt’s hand.  Kurt shivers as Blaine’s fingers twine with his and Blaine’s thumb rubs against the thin, delicate skin of his wrist.  He shifts to stand next to Blaine, and presses a quick kiss to his temple because he wants to, Cooper be damned.

“This was supposed to be a surprise for you,” Kurt says, and he doesn’t bother to conceal the slight pout in his voice.  It’s not that Cooper’s ruined anything, per se, but Kurt had  _plans_ , and those plans did not include a third party.

“This is a surprise.  I am surprised.”  Blaine glances over Kurt’s shoulder at Cooper, who is leaning against the kitchen counter with utter nonchalance, idly stirring the boiling pasta, and smirking at them both.

“Hey, B,” Cooper says, and he waves the spaghetti server at them, undoubtedly flinging water around.  “What’s up?  Long time no see.”

“That’s not even remotely true.”

Cooper just grins wolfishly and scoops up some of the pasta to test.  Kurt hopes the bread isn’t burning in the oven.  Even if his dinner-for-two has suddenly become a table-for-three, he’s not going to let it go to ruin before his eyes.

“Coop, can you give us a minute.  Alone.  Please?”  Blaine’s fingers tighten around Kurt’s, and Kurt squeezes back reassuringly.  He leans closer into Blaine’s body, offering a bit of physical comfort.

“Sure,” Cooper turns around, presenting his back to them.  Blaine sighs (the deep exhale of a man who’s been through this before, many times) and Kurt conceals his grin against Blaine’s shoulder.

“Cooper-” There’s a warning in Blaine’s voice, but it’s fond rather than annoyed, and Kurt has no doubts that Blaine is well versed in dealing with Cooper’s tomfoolery.

“Well it’s not like there’s anywhere else to go.  Your place is tiny.”  Cooper catches Kurt’s eye, and Kurt swears Cooper winks at him.  He thinks about what they’re planning, not quite behind Blaine’s back, and he feels his cheeks pink a little with excitement and nerves.  It’s a big step, huge, but like all the other steps along the way, he’s ready for it.  He’s ready for everything with Blaine.

“Then wait outside.”

“But I’m not allowed to be naked in your hallway again.  Remember?  Because of the  _children_.”

Kurt can hear Blaine’s eyeroll and he makes a mental note to ask Blaine about that.  Given what he already knows of Cooper, and what he’s quickly learning, there must be quite the story.  He can’t wait to hear it.

“Coop,  _please_.”  There’s a note in Blaine’s voice, quietly serious, that makes Cooper stand up straight and put the server down.

Kurt wonders what it’s like to have a brother.  To have someone you grew up with, someone who’s seen every little facet, every nuance, of you up close and personal, and still loves you for them.  He wonders what it’s like to have someone who shares your blood, and who knows your secrets and your dreams.  Someone who knows the stories you’ll never tell another soul because they were right there with you.  There’s an age gap between Blaine and Cooper, and not a small one, and Kurt wonders how that changed the dynamic of their relationship.  He knows a bit of what Blaine’s father was like, how cold and distant he was, and how, after the divorce, Cooper took care of Blaine as best he could.  And then later, when Cooper left for LA, Kurt knows how Blaine was shoved aside and forgotten.  How he was neglected even more than he had already been by a father who didn’t want him.  Kurt can’t begin to imagine what that was like, for either of them.

For as teasing as their relationship appears to be, there’s clearly a limit, and Cooper has apparently reached Blaine’s.  But he knows when to back down - when to raise his hands and accept the truce.

Cooper turns off the stove and the oven before walking over to Blaine and Kurt.  He pauses and rests a hand on Kurt’s shoulder, solid and reassuring.  The gesture reminds Kurt so strongly of his own dad that his breath catches in his throat.  Cooper doesn’t say anything, just looks deep into Kurt’s eyes (and damn are Cooper’s eyes bright and piercing) and smiles encouragingly.  Kurt thinks he understands. 

 _This is my little brother_ , Cooper’s face says.  _I’m trusting you to take care of him_.

Kurt is going to do everything in his power to do just that.

Then Cooper reaches past Kurt and ruffles Blaine’s already messy hair, ducking nimbly out of the way as Blaine tries to swat at him.

“Put some damn clothes on, would you?”  Blaine calls over his shoulder, and it’s met with a resounding  _no_  as the bedroom door closes behind Cooper.

Kurt immediately slides his arms around Blaine’s shoulders like he’s been wanting to since Blaine walked into the apartment and finds his mouth in a soft, sweet kiss.  “Hi,” he murmurs against Blaine’s parted lips as Blaine’s hands come to settle on his hips.  Blaine finally relaxes into him and takes a deep, calming breath. Kurt feels like the air is being pulled from his own lungs; he’ll share breath and strength with Blaine for as long as he’ll accept it.

“I’m sorry about this,” Blaine whispers, and he leans his forehead against Kurt’s jaw.  Kurt shivers a little when Blaine’s fingers creep up under the hem of his shirt to find his skin.

“Don’t be.  Your brother is - well he’s quite the character, isn’t he?”

“I should have told you, about him.  I wanted to.  I did.  But I didn’t want it to be a - a thing.  Because of who he is.”  Blaine’s voice is so soft, but Kurt hears him perfectly.

Kurt can’t imagine what it’s like for Blaine to be the younger brother of a man like Cooper – Blaine, who is so quiet and so reserved, who seems the happiest when he’s lost deep in his music and his writing, or in Kurt.

“I don’t give a shit about who your brother is,” Kurt says with all the conviction in his bones.  He needs Blaine to understand this.  “I care about  _you_.  I want you.  Only you.  And if some famous actor comes with you, then so be it.  Blaine,” Kurt pauses with Blaine’s name still sweet on his tongue.

“We should move in together,” Kurt says, and the world narrows to Blaine’s sharp, surprised inhalation and the sudden tensing of his shoulders under Kurt’s arms.  Kurt doesn’t know where they come from, those words.  But they’re there, and he means them; he can never regret them.  He’s tired of holding back the things he wants to say to Blaine until some vague, mysterious appropriate time occurs.

“Kurt, we-”

Kurt draws back and cups Blaine’s face in his hands.  Blaine’s eyes are so huge and so bright, shining a brilliant green-gold in the warm light of his apartment.  Kurt thinks - he  _knows_  - he wants to wake up to those eyes, and go to sleep to them, for the rest of his life.  He brushes his thumbs across Blaine’s cheekbones.

“I love you,” he breathes out, and it’s not a confession anymore.  It just is.  It’s the beat of his heart and the air in his lungs.  Blaine swallows thickly, pupils going wide and dark, and Kurt leans in to press a tender kiss to his mouth.  He relishes the low, aching sound Blaine makes against his lips.  “It’s always going to be you.” And that is his soul in a few easy words.

“It’s only ever been you,” Blaine responds, and he nuzzles his cheek against Kurt’s palm.  He’s looking at Kurt with everything,  _everything_  in his eyes.  It’s all there.  Every ounce of love and affection he holds for Kurt, and it makes Kurt’s heart clench painfully in his chest.  He will never get over this, over Blaine.  He will never get over how this sweet, wonderful, amazing man is his, and only his.  Hopefully forever.

“Then what are we waiting for?  Why are we going back and forth between our places?  Your bathroom sink is too small and my bedroom is drafty.  You almost can’t open your oven door if someone is in the kitchen and my stairwell is just really creepy.  But we could find someplace between where we work and where you go to school.  We could have something that’s  _ours_.”  Kurt can hardly breathe for the thought of it - of a place with Blaine, shared space for their shared lives.  His blood is singing and happiness bubbles in his belly. 

“We can’t afford-” The hope on Blaine’s face belies the worry in his voice.  Kurt knows he’s thinking about his measly Starbucks paycheck, and how he’d never let Kurt pay more than his fair half.

“But what if we could?” Kurt interrupts.  “What if we figured out a way?  I mean, it might take a while, it might take a lot of searching, but what if we found something?  What if there is a place just for us?  Would you say yes?”  He doesn’t mention Cooper’s offer.  It’s not the time.

 _Please say yes_ , Kurt thinks, desperately.

Blaine’s shoulders release all their tension and he turns his face to press a kiss to Kurt’s palm.  “I am so in love with you, Kurt.”  He says, and he bites his lower lip.  Every time he says the words – whispered in the hazy light of morning over a shared cup of coffee, panted against Kurt’s chest when they’re tangled together under the sheets – is like a revelation for him.  Kurt can’t know what it means to Blaine to say it (how he pulls it from the depth of his soul), but he knows what it means to  _him_  to hear it.

Kurt grins tentatively, hopefully.  He feels like he might just burst out of his skin.  “So that’s a yes?”

“Yes,” Blaine smiles adoringly at him.  “Yes, of course.”

Kurt surges in and finds Blaine’s waiting mouth in a long kiss as Blaine’s arms wrap tightly around him.  He can taste the sweet crema of their future on Blaine’s tongue.

From Blaine’s bedroom comes a muffled, exuberant  _whoop_.

***

The pasta is a little overcooked, and the garlic bread is extra crispy, but the meal is still delicious.  Kurt sets the little table in the living room as though it’s the dining room, and even finds a bottle of wine in Blaine’s cabinet.  It’s sort of a celebration after all.  He would light a candle, but he’s not sure he trusts Cooper around fire.

At least Cooper found some clothes; when he emerged from Blaine’s bedroom, he was wearing a pair of dark, comfortable-looking pants and a grey long-sleeved Henley.  They had to be his own clothes because the hems of the pants came down to the tops of his still-bare feet; if they were Blaine’s, they would have looked like capris.  Kurt assumes Cooper brought an overnight bag or something with him, but he hasn’t seen it.

“I certainly hope you were wearing pants when Kurt let you in,” Blaine says after he’s served up pasta onto everyone’s plates.  They’re sitting on the plush carpet, knees and legs tucked under the table, and it’s cozy and perfect in a way that makes Kurt’s heart flutter.  This is his family now.  He can’t wait to call his father and tell him the news.  He can only imagine how excited his dad will be for them, and how he’ll demand to talk to Blaine himself.  Blaine always gets so flustered when talking to Burt on the phone.

“Kurt didn’t let me in,” Cooper replies nonchalantly as he steals an extra slice of the bread from the serving plate.

“What?”  Blaine freezes with a forkful of spaghetti halfway to his mouth.

“Yeah, no,” Kurt takes a sip of the wine.  He doesn’t drink much, and it makes him flush pink almost immediately.  “He was asleep on your couch when I got here.  In his underwear no less.  I almost ruined your dessert in my shock.”  Kurt had assumed it was a somewhat frequent occurrence, but Blaine’s face says otherwise.

Blaine splutters.  The spare key he has for Cooper is still hanging from the corkboard in the kitchen.  “What?  How did you…the key?”

“Oh that?” Cooper gestures towards the kitchen with his glass and the wine sloshes alarmingly.  “I made a copy two years ago.”

“You stole my key?”  Blaine’s voice rises with indignation.

“Stole?  No no no, little brother.  I  _borrowed_.  And had a copy made.  Just in case.”  Cooper winks at Kurt, who can’t stop smiling against the rim of his glass.  This is love and happiness and family.

“In case of  _what_?”

“In case I’m tired and you aren’t home.  You know how I hate hotel beds.  Do you know how many people have had sex in those beds?  And I’m not going to walk into your Starbucks, in the middle of Times Square, to get the key from you.  Can you even imagine how that’d go?  Mr.  _I don’t want any part of your fame_ Anderson.”  Cooper flicks his wrist dismissively and Blaine blushes.

Kurt can’t wait for the first Thanksgiving or Christmas with the four of them at his father’s house.  It’s going to be fantastic, if this little impromptu dinner is any indication.

“So you stealing my key was for my own good.”

“I’m so glad you understand.”

Blaine just hums and takes a long drink of his wine.  Kurt reaches under the table and squeezes at his knee.

***

The night is long and full of laughter.

Cooper regales them with stories of his movie shoots and all the insane, egotistical actors he’s had to work with.  Kurt can’t imagine having to deal with all those personalities – the models and designers he’s already met are more than enough.  Kurt tells Cooper all about Carrie Bradshaw and Anna Wintour, and he promises to take Cooper to work with him in the morning.  (Cooper almost drops his glass when Kurt intimates that he can get Carrie to sign a book or two for him.)  And Cooper can’t stop laughing when Blaine tells them about the customer the other day who refused to take a receipt from him, saying, “I don’t need a reminder of this interaction.”

And Blaine’s eyes go wide when Cooper tells him that Kurt is going to make a suit for him for an upcoming event.

“Coop, you-” Blaine starts to say, but Cooper cuts him off with a sharp look.

“Don’t even start with me, B.  Your boyfriend is fucking talented and I would be honored to wear anything he made for me.  Still have to figure how to get him to accept payment for it, though.”

“As if you could make Kurt do anything he doesn’t want to do.”

Kurt just rolls his eyes at them both and leans back against the couch.  Blaine is warm next to him and he snuggles into Blaine’s side when he lifts his arm invitingly and curls it around Kurt’s shoulder, pulling him even closer.  He’s had a few glasses of wine, his belly is full of food, and his heart is full of love and family. 

Kurt closes his eyes and rests his cheek against Blaine’s shoulder.  He lets the sounds of Cooper and Blaine bickering good-naturedly, the clatter of utensils and the clinking of glasses, and the patter of rain against the windows wash over him, lulling him to contented drowsiness.  Swatches of color and drapes of fabric float lazily around his brain.  He has all sorts of cuts and patterns he wants to get Cooper in – something dark, of course, classic, but maybe with a splash of color in the tie and the pocket square, or a subtle pattern in the fabric that catches the eye and makes him stand out.  He’s not sure what kind of event this suit is going to be for, but he knows that Cooper will look good in almost anything.

He tries not to think about what doing this could mean for his career, and for his and Blaine’s future; it’s almost too overwhelming.  This could mean everything for them.  Cooper is family and he’s not going to take money from him for this.  For now, he’s content to drift off, sitting on Blaine’s living room floor, curled into the perfect curve of his side as Blaine strokes idly at his arm, and let his imagination run free.

But later, when Kurt sees an extra $3,000 tacked onto his paycheck, he knows where it came from.


	14. Cappucchino

It takes three months to find a new place.

New York has so many wonderful and unique neighborhoods, and Blaine finds himself overwhelmed by the myriad options.  He wants to live by a serene park with birdsong filtering through the open windows, or above a little coffee shop that’s not a Starbucks, or down a quiet, tree-lined street where kids play and little old ladies walk their dogs.  He wants restaurants nearby, but no hotels.  He wants to be within easy walking distance of a subway stop, but far away from the tourists.  And Kurt is almost no better - he has grand aspirations of high ceilings and bay windows.  Some nights they stay up way too late with Blaine’s laptop open and maps of the city spread out across the table with the subway lines highlighted and color-coded.  Kurt’s made a checklist, and everything too far north and too far south is crossed off in thick Sharpie, but that still leaves the entire middle of Manhattan.  It’s really quite a small city, but right then it’s entirely too big.

Blaine knows he wants a place somewhere between Tisch and Times Square, so neither of them have to commute terribly far.  He’s got another year and some change to go in his program, and he doesn’t know how long he’ll have to keep working at the Starbucks, but he doesn’t want to move twice if he doesn’t have to.

Cooper tries to get them to move to the Upper East Side, to a grand house on Carnegie Hill, saying it’s absolutely perfect for them, but Blaine knows the area, and he knows how far out of their price range it is.  Up-scale doesn’t even begin to describe the area; he is not a fur coat and parlormaid kind of man.  Of course, he’d love to live on Park Avenue in one of those classic, gorgeous, renovated brownstones (with the adorable little stoops where he could keep a potted plant or two in the spring and hang Christmas lights in the winter) or in one of the lovely townhouses down the side streets.  But those are for people with old money or new investments.  Maybe, one day, they’ll be able to live in a place like that.  Or maybe they’ll buy a big, beautiful home with a yard and room enough for a family to grow.

In the end, Blaine just wants to live with Kurt - to make a  _home_  with him.

He wants to wake up in their bed and know that Kurt is going to be there - that it’s not one of those cold and lonely nights when, for some reason, Kurt is at his own place and Blaine’s left staring at the empty pillow next to his.  He wants Kurt’s side of the closet to be fuller than his own, and somehow Blaine will find a way to keep Kurt’s clothes from absorbing the stink of stale espresso (even though Kurt still presses his nose into the curve of Blaine’s throat and inhales deeply the rich, coffee-flavored scent of his skin).  He wants those nights when he doesn’t have class and his work shift ends at five so he can wait for Kurt at the corner of 41st and Broadway.  Sometimes they’ll go out for an early dinner before heading home together - Blaine still in his rumpled work clothes and Kurt in whatever impeccable outfit he put on that morning.  Kurt is always so put together (unless he’s falling apart under Blaine), but Blaine is getting over feeling like he’s unworthy to stand at Kurt’s side - tall, beautiful Kurt who always looks like he’s stepped off a runway.  Blaine is learning all that matters is the way Kurt looks at him, with those ever-changing eyes, like he’s perfect, like he’s wanted.  Because to Kurt, he  _is_.

Blaine finds ways to make his basic, boring Starbucks dress code a little more fashionable, a little more interesting.  He steals a thick leather cuff from Kurt one morning - sliding it off his wrist and onto his own as Kurt’s cheeks flush a delicate, pretty pink and his pupils blow wide.  (They’re both almost late for work that morning, but the bruise sucked into his inner thigh is so worth the rush to clock-in on time.)  He keeps finding pants that hug the full curve of his ass and cling to his strong thighs.  He makes sure the hems end a few inches above his shoes (new Chucks that mysteriously appeared in his closet and Kurt has  _no idea_  how they got there) because he’s seen the way Kurt’s eyes are inexplicably drawn to his bare ankles.  He even leaves the top buttons of his increasingly fitted polos undone because of the way Kurt’s gaze lingers on his chest hair, not to mention the spike in tips from customers the store receives.

But they find a place - a gorgeous, newly renovated Pre-War townhouse in Chelsea with high ceiling, exposed brick walls, and a row of huge windows in the living room that has western exposure.  They viewed the townhouse one weekday after Kurt got off work, and the late-afternoon sun illuminated the wide-open space, making the rich hardwood floors glow warmly as golden-pink light smoothed along the walls.  Blaine stands in the middle of the room, bathed in light with the Hudson River glittering in the distance, with Kurt’s arms snug around his waist and his chin hooked over his shoulder, and takes a soul-deep breath.  Blaine hadn’t realized just how close and confined his old apartment was.  But this - this feels like it could become home.

The floorboards don’t creak and the pipes don’t rattle.  The living room is big enough for Kurt to set a sewing machine along the back wall where he gets the best light, and there’s a spare room where Blaine can finally, finally put a piano so he doesn’t have to stay late at school using the stuffy practice rooms.  The bathroom isn’t huge, but the sink is wide enough for both of their things and the tub is built for two.  The kitchen appliances are new, the oven door opens with plenty of room to spare, and there’s even space for a little dining room table.  Their neighbors are an elderly couple, who’ve been together for 54 years and still go out dancing every Friday night, and a young family with a new baby and two dogs.  It’s as close to perfect as anything could be.

Blaine knows, he just  _knows,_ that Cooper did something to get them this place.  But he can’t prove it.  The monthly rent written down on the lease is too low, far too low for a townhouse like this in a neighborhood like Chelsea.  He brings it up to Kurt one night, when the papers are theirs to sign, but he can’t quite make himself pick up the pen.  Kurt just shrugs and says something about the previous tenant dying in the bathroom.  But he says it with a twitch to his lips and a twinkle in his eyes that makes Blaine scrunch up his nose until Kurt kisses him into submission, pushing him back into the couch cushions as the lease papers flutter to the floor.  Blaine lets it go.

His brother has been desperate to help him out since high school (really from the day he was born), since he wanted, for one crazy night, to run away with Cooper to LA, as far away from Bridgeport as he could get.  Cooper had offered to buy him a plane ticket and let him stay on the couch for as long as he needed, but by the morning, the wild urge to  _run_ that had risen up inside of him had subsided and he’d carried on, like he always had.

Blaine refused Cooper’s offer of tuition help for his undergraduate work at NYU (although it had proved a moot point when he’d won that scholarship), and again for graduate school.  He went so far as to tell the school bursar to let him know if anyone tried to pay his bills for him.  But every quarter he’d find the books on his reading lists and stacks of sheet music sitting on his table.  There was never a note attached, but he always knew where they came from.  And when his cupboards and cabinets are packed with more food than he remembers buying after one of Cooper’s visits, well, Blaine is learning to accept the help his brother so desperately wants to give him.  Especially when it means he has extra cash to take Kurt out to dinner and shows and museums and Sunday brunches at their favorite cafe where they grin at each other over coffee cups and tangle their feet together under the table.

But Blaine can’t care about the improbably, impossibly low rent, not when he signs his name next to Kurt’s on the lease.  He doesn’t say anything, not then, but he thinks about another piece of paper he wants to see his name scrawled out next to Kurt’s on.

***

Neither of them have a lot to sell or get rid of - Kurt’s sublet came fully furnished and Blaine’s cramped apartment was too small for him to have accumulated much at all over the years.  Most of what’s Kurt’s are his clothes and his growing supply of fabrics, and his own shelves of books and movies.  Blaine can’t wait to see his books organized together with Kurt’s; he wants to reach into a cupboard and not remember which coffee mug was originally his.

There’s the couch (which Blaine bought for $50 five years ago), but he kind of wants to get rid of it, even though they can’t really afford a new one, and the bookcase that Blaine could never part with.  There’s the dresser that Blaine’s grandfather built and the low coffee table in the living room, but the latter isn’t very important to him at all.  And, of course, there’s Blaine’s bed, which Kurt demands to keep, no matter what.

“I have a lot of very fond memories of your bed,” Kurt whispers into Blaine’s ear and he strokes his hand down Blaine’s waist.  Blaine shudders, remembering Kurt’s face above his that first night, the sweetly stunned look in his eyes, and he cannot argue with that at all.

It all means that moving is a fairly simple affair.  Blaine’s coworker Jeff shows up in the early morning (on his day off no less) to help pack boxes into the moving truck, and so does Cooper, even though Blaine’s fairly certain his brother is supposed to be in Vancouver shooting a new movie with Martin Scorsese.  Jeff stares at Cooper with his mouth agape for about five minutes until Coop offers him an autograph.  He blushes so deeply he looks sunburned, but accepts the sleeve from Cooper’s coffee cup that now bears Cooper’s name scrawled across it.  Burt wants to fly out to help his boys, but Kurt refuses, telling him he should come over for Thanksgiving instead.  (There’s a too-generous check in their mailbox a week later that has Blaine on the phone in seconds and babbling his gratitude to Burt for an hour.)

The morning is a little overcast and cool when they pull up to the townhouse.  The street is quiet, and at the end of the block Blaine can see a woman walking a dog.  He feels Kurt step up next to him on the sidewalk and slide his hand into Blaine’s, and Blaine shivers when they look up at the building that is now their home.

This is big.  This is huge. This is his and Kurt’s  _together_.  His heart feels full to bursting and he can’t stop grinning.  He doesn’t want to stop.  He never, ever thought his life would come to this.  He never imagined he’d find someone just for him, especially someone like Kurt - Kurt, who feels like he was built just for Blaine’s hands and mouth and heart.  He knows he’s made for Kurt in just the same way.  It’s glorious and frightening and Blaine wouldn’t change a thing.  The best he can do is hang on while his life barrels down this newly paved road.

Blaine climbs the steps to their front door, Kurt next to him and still holding his hand tightly, but he pauses on the threshold with the new, shiny key grasped between his fingers.  His pulse is pounding and his knees tremble.

“You should do it,” Blaine says, looking over at Kurt.  Kurt just smiles gently at him and shakes his head.

“Blaine-” Kurt’s voice is soft and fond, and the  _I love you even though you’re ridiculous_  look is evident on his beautiful face.

“Kurt.”

Kurt wrinkles his nose adorably before he reaches out and folds his other hand over Blaine’s.  “Together.”

Blaine holds his breath as the key slides into the lock and the tumblers give way with a resounding  _click_  and the door swings open.

Blaine almost drops his keys and he hears Kurt’s shocked gasp next to him.  Their new townhouse is almost completely furnished.  There’s a sofa and matching love seat in the living room, angled towards a spot where their TV would fit perfectly.  A coffee table in a rich wood that complements the polished floors sits in the middle of the arrangement.

“Huh, interesting.”  Cooper says, too nonchalantly, from behind them as he peers around them to look into the house.

Blaine steps inside, mouth hanging agape as he clings desperately to Kurt’s hand.  There are long curtains hanging above the windows where there were none before, and the pale cream of them complements the new furniture and the deep maroon rug from Blaine’s old apartment that’s waiting in the moving truck.  A comfortable, overstuffed wingback chair that Blaine immediately recognizes from his grandparents’ house is placed next to a side table with a lamp on it.  It doesn’t match the couches, not really, but the sight of it makes Blaine’s heart clench almost painfully.  He hasn’t been to his grandparents’ home in years, but that chair brings back every memory of it.  Set up where the light is best, is a work table, just the height and size for a sewing machine, and even though he can’t see into the spare room from where he is, Blaine’s willing to bet his  _life_  that there is a piano waiting for him in there.

And there are vases of fresh, sweetly fragrant flowers everywhere - on the new coffee table, on the long kitchen counter, and spaced along the wide window sills.

Blaine almost can’t breathe and only the heat of Kurt pressed close to his side keeps him from flying out of his skin or collapsing to the floor.  When Blaine glances over his shoulder, Jeff is grinning so widely at them that Blaine is certain Jeff knew about this beforehand.

“The flowers weren’t me,” Cooper says casually, because apparently neither Blaine nor Kurt can say anything.  “The flowers are from Kurt’s boss.  Lovely woman, that Carrie.  I think she’s finally gotten over me making her sign all those books.  And trading ties with her husband in the Condé Nast elevator.”  Cooper touches one of the walls with careful, reverent fingers.

“Cooper, you-” Blaine starts to say, but stops.  There’s really nothing he can say.  He just throws himself into Cooper’s arms like he used to when he was a little boy.  Cooper’s strong arms come around him and hold him tight and Blaine tries not to cry into his big brother’s chest.

It’s almost too much, especially considering what Cooper’s already done for them, and not just with the townhouse.

It’s been months, and Blaine is still getting over the shock of The Suit (and when he thinks of it, there are always capital letters).  Cooper hadn’t said what event the suit Kurt was making for him was supposed to be for.  All he said was that it was for a not-quite-black-tie event that would be very widely photographed.

Blaine had never, ever expected to snuggle up on the couch under a blanket with Kurt to watch the Oscars one cold and snowy late-February evening and see his brother (who was nominated again for Best Supporting Actor) walk down the red carpet in the very suit that Kurt had designed and created for him.

Kurt had choked on his popcorn and Blaine had dropped the remote to the floor.  There Cooper was, tall and handsome, in a perfectly-fitted suit with a subtle pattern to the fabric and just enough uniqueness to the cut and style of it to make it stand out in the sea of basic black tuxedos and suits.  There his brother was, in front of the world, in an outfit that Kurt, young and inexperienced Kurt, had designed and made with his own two hands.  Kurt had told Carrie about the project, and she had given him some time off to be able to complete it - as well as access to fabric and equipment that was better than anything he could have been able to get for himself. (Turned out she was quite the fan of Cooper Anderson.)

And then Cooper had started his red carpet interviews, and in each and every single one he mentioned Kurt.  Kurt Hummel: up and coming designer, natural talent, someone to watch out for.  Kurt Hummel, boyfriend to his younger brother – a brother who’ll surely be famous in his own right one day.

“I don’t think I’m going to be wearing anything else,” Cooper had said, grinning into the camera.  “As long as Kurt agrees to keep making things for me.  Hi, Kurt.  Hi, Blaine.”

Kurt had buried his bright red face into Blaine’s chest and Blaine could feel his body trembling as he wrapped his arms tightly around his boyfriend.  And he knew how this could,  _would_ , change their lives, how it would change everything.  He knew what kind of influence Cooper had.  Blaine could so clearly see the messages and phone calls Kurt would start to receive from people suddenly interested in the unknown kid who designed the gorgeous Oscar suit for Cooper Anderson.

It’s how Kurt’s staggering career truly begins, how their lives become what they do, and Blaine will never, ever be able to thank Cooper enough for that.

Blaine sniffles against Cooper’s shoulder (so maybe he is crying a little).  “I love you, Coop,” he murmurs.  “So much.”

“You’re my little brother,” Cooper responds, and he presses a kiss to the top of Blaine’s curly head.  “I will do anything for you.  And for Kurt.  You just have to let me.”

Blaine nods and draws back.  He gets it.  He does.  He finally understands that it’s not about money, or pity, or anything like that, but  _family_.  Cooper kisses his forehead before he reaches out for Kurt.  Blaine shifts to the side a bit as Cooper draws Kurt into his arms for a tight hug.

“Thank you,” Kurt whispers, just loud enough for Blaine to hear.  There is so much in those two words that fresh tears come to Blaine’s eyes.  Blaine understands that too - there’s no way to thank someone enough for something like this.

“You are so very welcome.  You’ve made my brother happier than anyone else possibly could have.  This is the least I could do for you.  You deserve everything that comes to you.  Know that.”

They spend the rest of the afternoon unpacking: putting dishes into cupboards, books onto shelves, and clothes into closets and drawers.  Sometimes Blaine has to stop and draw Kurt into a slow, sweet kiss, just to ground himself with the taste of Kurt’s lips and the feel of his tongue.  He knows this is real - this home, and this life - but it’s hard to believe.  The dreams he scarcely imagined are coming true before his eyes and he can hardly breathe for it.

They order a pizza and Jeff produces a six-pack of beer that he’d somehow managed to hide as a surprise.  The four of them settle around the new coffee table, on Blaine’s old carpet, and eat and drink until it grows dark and the lights of the boats on the Hudson twinkle in the distance through the grand windows.

And that night, when Cooper has, thankfully, disappeared to a hotel room for once, and Jeff has gone home, Blaine lays curled up with Kurt in their old bed in their new bedroom.  The walls smell of fresh paint and the sheets of his laundry soap. Kurt’s skin is flushed and damp beneath his cheek and against his body, still cooling down from their first intimacy in their new home.

“I am ridiculously in love with you,” Blaine murmurs against Kurt’s throat.  His leg is draped across Kurt’s naked thighs with his knee tucked up intimately against Kurt’s groin.  He can feel Kurt’s heart beating against his own chest and the sound of it is the rhythm of Blaine’s life.

Kurt’s fingers tangle in his hair and tilt his face up for a lazy kiss. The touch of Kurt’s hands and the taste of his breath are the cadence of Blaine’s very soul.  It’s what he’s been trying to capture in words and notes, in verses and bridges, since the moment Kurt walked so unexpectedly into his Starbucks one warm September morning.

“I love you more than I can say,” Kurt whispers as he brushes his thumb across Blaine’s lips.  Blaine’s eyes flutter shut.

 _I am going to marry you_ , Blaine thinks, but doesn’t quite say.  Not yet.

But he will.


	15. Affogato: The Epilogue

Blaine waits until after their second anniversary to propose.

It’s not that he’s not ready.  He’s ready.  He’s had the rings tucked into the back of a kitchen cupboard inside the spare milk pitcher for his espresso machine (the only place he’s fairly certain Kurt wouldn’t stumble upon them) for more than a year - since their first anniversary.  He couldn’t hide them in the sock drawer the way he did the apartment key; even though they technically have their own drawers, Kurt’s socks tend to end up nestled next to Blaine’s and Blaine’s t-shirts end up folded in between Kurt’s.

One warm September afternoon, when he knew Kurt was out of the office for a few hours, he called and asked Carrie if, for some reason, she happened to know Kurt’s ring size.  He tried to play coy about the reason for the call, but she saw right through his awkward, stuttering question.  Carrie did him one better by offering style suggestions - how the rings shouldn’t match, but complement each other; how a diamond was only necessary if he was trying to prove something.  And then she informed him that if she wasn’t invited to the wedding, Kurt would be fired.  Blaine went out a week later, to a little jewelry store in the neighborhood, owned by a kind, round-faced little woman, that he’d passed by a couple of times, and he picked out two rings.  They weren’t the most expensive in the shop, but the cost of them meant nothing in comparison to the meaning of them.

Blaine sent a photo of the rings via text message to Cooper the afternoon he bought them, and then Blaine spent the next hour listening as his brother alternated between sobbing his congratulations and yelling at him for not letting him help ring shop.  Blaine can’t imagine what kinds of gaudy, priceless rings Cooper would have attempted to force on him, but his brother’s enthusiasm will always mean everything to him.

He hid the box in the milk pitcher before Kurt got home that night, where it sat insistent and obvious as a tell-tale heart.  The first few months after he bought them, Blaine’s own heart jumped and his breath caught fast in his throat whenever he heard Kurt open a cabinet door, as though he’d somehow stumble upon the little box.  As though, if he did, Blaine wouldn’t immediately get down on one knee and beg for Kurt’s hand.

As though he doesn’t have it already.

It’s not that Blaine is waiting for the time to be right – the time has always been right.  He’s thought about asking since their first night in their townhouse together, when Kurt was flushed and sleepy against him and everything smelled new and fresh and already like home.  He thought about it when they flew off for a long weekend together in Toronto for their one-year anniversary, using Cooper’s inexhaustible frequent flyer miles.  They spent a few hours at the AGO, and a few more browsing through the St. Lawrence Market early on Saturday, where Blaine ate too much and Kurt almost got lost in the cheese section.  But they spent most of it lazing in bed together.  Their cozy little B&B had a big bed and a bigger bay window, and on Sunday morning before they left for home, Blaine watched the play of sunlight across Kurt’s smooth, pale skin and thought about digging the little black box out of the bottom of his overnight bag.

And it’s not that Blaine thinks they’re too young to get married.  He knows twenty-four is young (twenty-two was younger and he was almost ready then), but what’s the point in waiting another couple of years?  Every age is young to someone older, and if he waits until they’re thirty, Blaine knows he’ll regret every day he didn’t call Kurt his husband. 

_His husband._

During their second Christmas together in Ohio, Blaine cornered Burt in his shop and told him about the rings and showed him the picture he’d sent Cooper.  He hadn’t brought them with him on this trip, too afraid he’d somehow lose them going through airport security, or drop the box in front of Kurt when unpacking.  His knees were trembling so hard he thought he might collapse to the cold concrete floor of the shop at any moment.  He didn’t ask for Burt’s permission, but he needed Kurt’s father’s approval; he understood what family meant to Kurt and he respected that.  The tears in Burt’s eyes and the massive, bone-crushing hug Blaine received were all he needed to know that Burt would be there in the wedding party whenever and wherever it happened.  And the “welcome to the family, son” murmured into his hair was more than enough to break something deep inside of him and send Blaine crying like a little boy into Burt’s arms.

Blaine is not waiting for anything.  But his graduate program is intense and it takes up all of his spare time.  He has to focus on that – on his writing and his composing – because that is his future.  He wants to make it, wants to make something of himself.  Those are his dreams and they have been since he was a little boy.  He can’t put them on the back burner to focus on something else, even if that something else is saying  _I do_  to the person that he loves during a small, intimate ceremony in New York City.

But when he graduates that June, at the top of his class, after two long, trying, intense years in the program, he knows he can finally pull that little black box out of its secret place and put it into Kurt’s hand.  No regrets.

Blaine doesn’t quit Starbucks, not yet, because as much as he’d love to finally hang up his apron, he needs the money and the insurance.  He’d sold the script that came out of his final project, right after graduation, and he’s pretty sure either Cooper or his professor had at least a little something to do with it.  It certainly didn’t hurt anything that Cooper showed up at the presentation of his full-length musical.  Blaine thought he wouldn’t be able to part with the notes and pages that so clearly, so obviously describe his innermost feelings about his relationship, but he’s beyond satisfied with the work, and if some director wants to make something of it, then who is Blaine to stop them?  His name is getting out there, and both money and work are coming his way.  It’s not a lot, and it’s not yet steady, but it’s a start.  It’s something to be proud of.

And if he’s perfectly honest with himself, Blaine actually loves to make coffee.  He loves the skill and the craft of it.  He loves the way his hands know what to do without him needing to really think about it.  Of course, he wishes that Starbucks employed manual machines where he could actually fine-tune and tweak the espresso pulls, or that anyone gave a shit when he does a clever little bit of art in the foam of their lattes.  No one ever seems to appreciate the pumpkins he gets really good at during Halloween, or the Christmas trees he spends a little extra time to make during the holidays.  At least Kurt knows to take the lid off his drinks to see the hearts and leaves that Blaine makes for him.

But his future is coming together better than he could have ever imagined it.  He’s getting recognition as a writer and composer.  He has a home and a life with the man he loves.  There’s not much more he can ask for.

There’s just one last thing.

*** 

Blaine glances up at the clock.

8:45am.

He sighs a little at the time and snaps a lid onto the light room Americano in his hands.  The woman who ordered it, teetering in her obnoxious heels and carrying a tiny dog in her purse, asked for a double-cup as well as a sleeve, and Blaine wrinkles his nose at the waste, but he does it anyway because he’s not allowed to say no.

The day is moving at a crawl, which is a little unusual for his store.  The opening shift usually flies by in a whirlwind of breakfast sandwiches and drip coffee, empty carafes and spilled sugar.  But the normally hectic Times Square store is a little slow that morning - Blaine doesn’t know if it’s because it’s a Friday and people have taken the day off for one of the last gorgeous three-day weekends New York is likely to have before fouler weather sets in, or if it’s just  _him_.  His mind is on something else, something far more important than the bathroom that is somehow already out of toilet paper, so it’s no surprise that it’s only 8:45 in the morning, and not at least 11am like he’d expected it to be.  But his distraction doesn’t mean he can slack on his job.  His customers expect a drink that is damn good, and hot too.

His customers don’t care that Blaine is going to ask his boyfriend to marry him tomorrow.

His crew actually had enough downtime before customers started trickling in to dust the windowsills and Spirit-clean the drains, when normally those things have to wait for the closing shift.  Blaine is even thinking about getting Jeff to take the mats out back into the alley and scrub them down.  They’re getting sticky with spilled milk and sloshed frappuccino and they’re starting to smell.  Blaine would do it himself, but he’s Shift Supervisor that morning, and Jeff has a strange propensity for deep-cleaning that Blaine takes advantage of whenever possible.  It’s also a dirty job, and Jeff is wearing black pants that day - the suds and grime from the mats won’t show up as badly on him as it will on Blaine’s khakis.  They’ve got more than enough people, and not enough customers, to spare Jeff leaving the floor for half an hour.

Blaine doesn’t even get the joy of having Kurt come through his line that morning.  Kurt has the day off from his regular duties at Vogue in order to finish up a suit for Mr. Preston, Carrie’s husband.  There’s yet another Vogue gala next week (and if Blaine’s learned anything at all about the fashion industry, it’s that they love to throw themselves parties) and Carrie told Kurt to focus on the suit instead of his usual job.  And when Carrie Bradshaw tells you not to come in to work because the cuffs of her husband’s suit need tweaking, well, you don’t come to work.

Kurt is getting rather well known as designer, even though he hasn’t come out with his own line yet; so far his work is commission-based, but it’s getting him somewhere.  His rising notoriety is partially in thanks to Cooper’s continued vocal support and refusal to wear anything but Kurt’s designs, but mostly it’s due to Kurt’s obvious and innate talent.  But because of his position as Carrie’s assistant, his work directly reflects Vogue - it has to be perfect.  Blaine knows that Kurt would never accept anything less than his very best work from himself.  They both have a touch of perfectionism in them, though they manage to leave that at the threshold of their front door.

But it’s Blaine’s favorite part of his shift to hear Kurt’s order get called down the line.  Two years and he still gets fluttery and flustered to know that Kurt’s there, watching him and only him.  (Blaine still puffs up a little when he remembers the borrowed partner they had, almost a year ago, who’d tried to flirt with Kurt, and Kurt hadn’t even noticed him at all.)  And when that cup with Kurt’s name scrawled across it reaches his hands, he’s not making it for just another customer.  He’s not just steaming milk and pouring shots by rote memory, he’s making something for Kurt.  It matters to him that it’s perfect every time, even if that means slowing down the line a little.  By now, his regular customers know who Kurt is to Blaine, and they know that the little extra wait is worth the drink they too will get from Blaine.  Kurt has never been just another customer.

“Hey you.”

Blaine’s head snaps up in surprise and he almost drops the shot glasses that are brimming with espresso; he knows that voice.  He knows it better than his own.

Kurt is standing there, in a dark fitted coat with his hair swept up and back, stunning as always.  He’s wearing the same sky-blue scarf as he was when they first met, and it makes his eyes so bright and luminous that it takes Blaine’s breath away.  It feels like forever and only yesterday since Kurt first walked into his store.

“Hey!”  Blaine manages to pour some milk into the cup marked for a latte in order to save the shots he almost dropped.  He doesn’t think he’ll ever get over the way Kurt makes him feel flushed and fumbling, like a schoolboy getting his first touch from a crush.

“What are you doing here?”  He’d left Kurt in the pre-dawn hours still asleep in their bed.  “You’re supposed to be taking the day off.”  Blaine gets a lid on the drink and shoves it toward the woman waiting at the edge of the bar with far less care than he usually does.  She’s something of a regular, and she shoots a glance between Kurt and Blaine, a little smile quirking her lips, before she takes her drink and leaves.

Blaine wipes his hands on the edge of his apron, takes a look around the store (currently almost empty), and leans over the bar to press a quick kiss to Kurt’s cheek.  From somewhere near the register, he hears something suspiciously like a wolf-whistle and he regrets not making Jeff take the mats out back after all.

“You were already gone when I woke up,” Kurt says, and his voice is low and secret, meant just for Blaine.  He adjusts Blaine’s collar over his apron strap.  “I missed you.”  He quickly brushes his fingers through Blaine’s soft curls and attempts to tuck one behind his ear.  Blaine’s hair is longer than ever, wild and gorgeous, and he knows how Kurt loves to run his fingers through it, though maybe not in the middle of a Starbucks.

Blaine blushes a little at the attention, he can’t help it.  Kurt will always have that effect on him.

“Can I make you something?  Can you stay a bit?  My break is coming up.”  Blaine asks, and he’s already reaching for a for-here mug.  Kurt came all the way up here just to see him - the least he can do is make his boyfriend a drink.

“As if I could say no to that offer.”  Kurt winks at him and Blaine wants to reach out, take a hold of that scarf, and tug Kurt into a better kiss.  He doesn’t care that it would be in front of his entire crew.

Blaine busies his hands with a gallon jug of nonfat milk to keep from doing just that.  He’s got about 10 minutes before his lunch break, and he’s giddy, almost bouncing on his toes, that he suddenly gets to spend it with Kurt when he thought he wouldn’t see him at all until later that afternoon.

As he makes Kurt’s regular drink, Blaine lets the question that’s been sitting in the back of his throat for more than a year begin to rise to his tongue.  There is no better time than this.  His pulse throbs wildly through his veins and his hands shake a little.  He’s full of nervous tension, but he’s not scared; he has courage enough for this.  He knows exactly what he wants.

“So,” Blaine begins when he slides the mug of nonfat, no whip mocha across the bar to Kurt.  His lips are dry, and so is his throat, and he’s sure Kurt can hear the frantic pounding of his heart over the beeping of the timers and hum of the pastry case.  “Tomorrow morning. The Park?  I know you’re busy but-”

“Of course.”  Kurt smiles at him, and it’s the smile that’s reserved just for Blaine.  It’s the one where his eyes go soft and his mouth just barely curves up.  It soothes Blaine’s nerves and calms his heart.

He is so very ready for this.

***

Saturday morning dawns cool and misty, with the kind of filtered October sunlight that will break through the haze by 10am.  Kurt wakes to the smell of coffee and waffles and an empty space in the bed next to him.  He stretches languidly, letting the sheets slide across his naked body, before he gets up and follows his nose into the kitchen.

Blaine is standing in front of the waffle iron, wearing jeans and his  _Hummel Tires and Lube_  t-shirt, and Kurt takes a moment just to admire the breadth of Blaine’s shoulders and the shifting of his muscles under the thin fabric of the worn shirt.  His hair is a little damp and Kurt wonders how long he’s been awake if he’s had time to shower and have breakfast almost done.

“You’re up bright and early,” Kurt says, and Blaine looks back at him over his shoulder.  He’s got a secret in his eyes that Kurt can’t quite guess at.

“Hey, morning!” Blaine crosses the kitchen, steps right into Kurt’s space, and presses a warm, languorous kiss to Kurt’s mouth.  He tastes of toothpaste and of coffee and Kurt hums appreciatively.  He presses closer, slides one hand around Blaine’s trim waist, and tangles his other fingers into Blaine’s hair.  Blaine’s mouth opens so easily for him and Kurt will never, ever get over the sweet thrill of his lips and tongue and the very taste of him.

“Hey, hey no,” Blaine laughs a little and untangles himself from Kurt’s hold.  Kurt whines a protest and twists his fingers tighter into Blaine’s shirt, holding on.  “Go and get dressed.  We’re taking breakfast to go.”

“But,” Kurt pushes in and finds Blaine’s neck, and he mouths at the warm skin there.

 _But we could go back to bed_ , he thinks.  He knows he promised Blaine the Park, but the rolling hills and winding pathways will still be there in another hour or two.

It’s probably clichéd, just a little, that Central Park has become their place.  But it has.  Kurt’s certain they’ve covered every mile of the park many times over in the last two years.  They’ve pulled on rain boots and slogged through the mud during a particularly wet spring, huddled together under Kurt’s bright yellow umbrella while Blaine resisted the urge to belt  _Singing in the Rain_.  They’ve worn flip-flops in the summer and walked barefoot through the grass.  Blaine was stung by a bee, but it was kind of worth it for the way Kurt held ice to his foot and soothed his ankle with careful fingers until the hurt went away.  They’ve laced up heavy boots and held gloved hands in the depths of winter when the snow was piled two-feet high and their noses and cheeks turned red with the cold.  Kurt smiles every time he thinks of the afternoon when Blaine walked him up to the trunk of a winter-bare tree and kissed him, slow and deep, until he was warm again.

But the fall is when he met Blaine; it’s when he fell in love with a gorgeous man with a generous heart, even though he didn’t say it until later.

It’s fall again, now, and the air is crisp and cool and all the leaves in Central Park are a rich, vibrant splash of color against the grey and black backdrop of the city skyline.  Kurt has a waffle dusted with cinnamon and powdered sugar and wrapped in wax paper so he can carry it in one hand while he holds a travel mug of rich, dark coffee in the other.  He needs to thank Blaine properly for breakfast when they get home from their stroll.  Blaine is at his side, close enough that their shoulders brush with every step, sipping at his coffee and just barely nibbling at his own waffle, and Kurt could not be happier if he tried.  The ground could open up beneath his feet and he’d fall to the depths knowing that he’d led a life truly lived.

Blaine is quiet next to him - more so than usual - and Kurt wonders if he’s stressed about the new piece he’s been working so hard on.  He’s heard Blaine on the piano in the spare room at all hours over the last week - tapping out notes and scribbling down bars not-quite-as-fast as his brain can come up with them.  It’s a beautiful melody, whatever it’s for.

Kurt nudges at Blaine’s arm with his elbow and Blaine glances over at him, a small smile playing on his lips.  He quirks a dark eyebrow at Kurt, as if to say, “yes, dear?” and Kurt just grins and shakes his head.  He has nothing to say, not really, he just wanted to be sure of Blaine.  There’s still something dark and secret in Blaine’s eyes, the same something that was there in the kitchen, but Kurt can’t put a name to it.  He shrugs it off and takes a deep breath.  New York can be dirty and grimy on the best of days, but the air down in the park is light and fresh and it fills his lungs with the heavy-sweet scent of wet grass and leaves.

They make their way down the long tree-lined Mall, slipping nimbly past clots of tourists and dodging runners with too many dogs.  Kurt knows they’re heading towards the Bethesda Terrace.  It’s one of their favorite places to come to, and from the upper level Kurt can just barely make out the Belvedere Castle rising high in the distance.  That landmark will always hold a special place in his heart.

There are people roaming around the grand Bethesda Fountain, as there always are - New Yorkers and tourists alike - but there is still something serene and peaceful about the terrace and the surrounding grounds.  Off to the side, there’s an older man perched on a box in front of an easel with a case of watercolors at his feet, and a skinny girl in thick-rimmed glasses is taking photos of the fountain with an old Polaroid camera.

Blaine looks nervous; the little smile from earlier is gone.  He’s biting his lower lip, worrying it between his teeth, and twisting his own coffee cup restlessly in his hands.  His brows are furrowed and Kurt can see a muscle twitching in his clenched jaw.  Kurt hasn’t seen Blaine’s shoulders this tense since the night of the presentation of his master’s final project.

“You ok?” Kurt finally asks, when Blaine comes to a stop next to the fountain, in a space where there aren’t quite as many people.

Blaine takes their mugs and sets them down on the edge of fountain before he clears his throat and says, “Give me your hands.”  His voice is low, almost gruff, and Kurt feels like Blaine is pulling the words from the very depths of his being, from the soles of his shoes and beyond.

He does so willingly (he would give Blaine anything he asked for), and Blaine enfolds Kurt’s hands in his own.  Blaine strokes his thumb rhythmically across the backs of Kurt’s knuckles, and Kurt shivers with something that has little to do with the light, familiar touch, and everything to do with the serious, intense look in Blaine’s eyes.  He’s never seen Blaine like this - not on their first date, not when Blaine offered him the key to his old apartment, not even when Blaine whispered  _I love you_ , low and fervent, into his ear on Christmas.

Kurt’s heart starts to race and he feels a flush pink his cheeks.  He’s trembling, but he’s not afraid.  He’s never been afraid of anything with Blaine.

“Kurt-”

And suddenly he knows what Blaine is going to ask him.  Of course he knows, and the answer has always been yes.

“You are the love of my life, Kurt,” Blaine says, and his voice is thick and choked with emotion.  “And I never want to learn what it might be like to be without you.  I’ve been without you before, and the world meant so little to me then.  It means everything to me now.   _You_  mean everything.  I didn’t even know I was looking for you until I found you, until you found me.”

Kurt can’t breathe and he cannot slow the pounding of his heart as Blaine reaches into his coat pocket and pulls out a little black box.  There could be a thousand people watching them, but in that moment there is nothing, there is  _no one_ , but Blaine and the two shining rings nestled together inside the box.  Kurt’s chest is tight and there is no sound on earth save the roar of his blood in his ears and sweet timbre of Blaine’s voice.

“Will you marry me?”

The world narrows and the focus sharpens to Blaine’s eyes, whiskey-gold and shining wetly in the autumn sunlight, and the gleaming bands in his palm.  Kurt’s knees feel weak and he clutches at Blaine’s forearm to steady himself.

There is no doubt as to his answer.  There never has been.

“Yes,” he breathes out, and it comes from his bones.  It comes from his heart, his blood, and his very soul.  “Yes of course I’ll marry you.”

The smile that lights up Blaine’s face is brighter than anything Kurt has ever seen, and it doesn’t dim as Blaine slides one of the thick bands onto his ring finger.  It fits perfectly and Kurt doesn’t even think to question how Blaine knew.  He can think of nothing save for the fact that Blaine is no longer his boyfriend, but his fiancé, and soon enough will be his  _husband_. There are tears in his eyes and slipping down his cheeks and he doesn’t care at all.

Kurt takes the second ring from the box and, with trembling fingers, manages to slide it onto Blaine’s own finger while Blaine continues to grin up at him like he’s the best, most important thing in the world.  And Kurt realizes, in a way, he is.

The ring is barely on before Blaine grabs his face with both hands, the ring box dropping to the ground, and pulls him into a long kiss.  Kurt can taste Blaine’s tears, and his own, and the bitter salt mingles with the sweet flavor of love and joy and their future.

Kurt pulls away just enough to whisper, “I love you,” and Blaine swallows the words with another kiss.

Blaine reaches down with his left hand, the hand that now bears the engagement ring placed there by Kurt’s own fingers, and curls it around Kurt’s waist.  He draws Kurt’s body close and rests his cheek on his shoulder.

“Dance with me,” he says, and it’s not a question.

Somewhere in the distance, a melody plays.  Kurt hadn’t heard it before, but he hears it now.  Cello notes - sweet and poignant, achingly romantic - echo from the lower passage of the terrace and trail along the wind.

“For as long as the music lasts.”

The music never stops playing.

-FIN-

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[podfic] Crema by twobirdsonesong](https://archiveofourown.org/works/890510) by [churkey](https://archiveofourown.org/users/churkey/pseuds/churkey)




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